For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing.
Interpretation
The dawn symbolizes new beginnings and hope that has persisted through the ages.
This quote by Alan Paton reflects the enduring nature of hope and renewal. Just as dawn arrives without fail after darkness, it serves as a reminder that every day brings new opportunities and the chance to start afresh, echoing the cyclical nature of life that has been witnessed throughout history.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, you could reference this quote to emphasize the importance of embracing new beginnings.
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.
The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist.
If you're in space on the way to Mars, and a conflict develops... you can't turn around and go back, because Earth is already gone on its orbit.
In too many instances, the march to globalization has also meant the marginalization of women and girls. And that must change.
The only way to end poverty, to make it history, is to build viable systems on the ground that deliver critical and affordable goods and services to the poor, in ways that are financially sustainable and scaleable. If we do that, we really can make poverty history.
With my early work I got eviscerated by my male professors, and so you learned to disguise your impulses, as many women have done. And thats definitely changed.
Churchgoers in America are notorious for jumping into movements, even ideas that are hard to listen to. But when they actually have to change their lifestyle and do something about it, it rarely translates into action.
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