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.
October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.
Black women rock the cradle, and whoever rocks the cradle rocks the future.
'Middle class' used to be synonymous with secure, with steady, with boring, because middle-class people were people who were pretty much safe from the time they first started work on through retirement and until their deaths. No longer.
Times change; Hollywood is not the same as it was when I first entered the business. It felt to me like it was starting to narrow down and centralize itself around what would... make money.
Self-centered anger generates evil, but wrath at social injustice becomes the driving force for reform. Strong language that censures and combats a great evil often awakens adverse reactions from society, but this must not intimidate those who believe they are right. A lion is a lion because he roars.
I think what's so powerful about Black Lives Matter is we're the first movement able to take on law enforcement and make it a popular discussion.
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