There are voices crying what must be done, a hundred, a thousand voices. But what do they help if one seeks for counsel, for one cries this, and one cries that, and another cries something that is neither this nor that.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the confusion that can arise from too many differing opinions when seeking guidance or counsel.
Alan Paton's quote highlights the challenge of navigating through a multitude of voices and opinions when making decisions. It suggests that while there may be many who offer advice or express their thoughts on what should be done, the cacophony of conflicting opinions often complicates the process of finding clear and trustworthy guidance, leaving one in a state of uncertainty.
In practice
A speaker might use this quote to initiate a discussion on how to effectively seek guidance in leadership.
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.
People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.
Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
Faith is not opposed to reason, but it is sometimes opposed to feelings and appearances.
He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
Too much has been forgotten in the name of memory.
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