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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the deep and complex purpose of life, suggesting it transcends human understanding.
Alan Paton's quote delves into the existential questions of life, emphasizing that the true purpose behind our existence is a profound mystery that cannot be fully grasped by human intellect. While wise individuals may attempt to articulate life's meaning through complex writings, the essence of why we live, struggle, and ultimately die remains elusive and beyond the limits of our wisdom.
In practice
In a graduation speech, to inspire students to seek their own purpose.
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 banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.
If we do wrong and no harm comes of it, we are not thereby justified. If we did evil and good came of it, the evil would be just as evil. It is not the result of the action, but the action itself which God weighs.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known.
Men have always shown a dim knowledge of their better potentialities by paying homage to those purest leaders who taught the simplest and most inclusive rules for an undivided mankind.
Who will observe the observers?
Exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.