Alan Paton

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that's the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.

Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.

One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.

What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?

It is not permissible to add to one's possesions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.

If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.

I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating.

I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.

because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.

The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just.

But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.

The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.

But perhaps when you were too obedient, and did not do openly what others did, and were quiet in church and hard-working at school, then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.

The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.

Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die?... Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.

We do not work for men. We work for the land and the people. We do not even work for money.

But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.

For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children. Money is for security, and for dreams, and for hopes, and for purposes. Money is for buying the fruits of the earth, of the land where you were born.

I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all.

There is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love.