Alan Paton
Alan Paton
Alan Stewart Patonwas a South African author and anti-apartheid activist...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 January 1903
christian believe suffering
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.
men strive
When men are ruled by fear, they strive to prevent the very changes that will abate it.
offence
But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.
giving unborn-child too-much
For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
money children clothes
And money is not something to go mad about ... Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children.
men land care
The ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.
heart
For who can stop the heart from breaking?
eye heart men
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?
habit could-have-been has-beens
It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be.
morbid preoccupation found
I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
finished one-thing
One thing is about to be finished, but here is something that is only begun. And while I live it will continue
men inhumanity-to-man trying
There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.
compassion heaven gold
And were your back as broad as heaven, and your purse full of gold, and did your compassion reach from here to hell itself, there is nothing you can do.
stars lying journey
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.