Quote

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.

Alan Paton

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Alan Paton
Age: 85 †
Born: 1903
Born: January 11
Died: 1988
Died: April 12
Author
Autobiographer
Politician
Screenwriter
Writer
Alan Patton
Alan Stewart Paton
Alen Peṭon
Rest
Stars
Lying
Away
Compass
Play
Slips
Need
False
Needs
Star
Life
Journey

More quotes by Alan Paton

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The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just.
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The truth is, our civilization is not Christian it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.
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If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
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One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.
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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.
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Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal.
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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.
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The only way in which one can make endurable man's inhumanity to man, and man's destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man's humanity to man and man's reverence for the place in which he lives.
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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.
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For who can stop the heart from breaking?
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When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for? I couldn’t face that question. (Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful)
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There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.
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St. Francis of Assisi taught me that there is a wound in the Creation and that the greatest use we could make of our lives was to ask to be made a healer of it.
Alan Paton
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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.
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In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest, there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools
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When men are ruled by fear, they strive to prevent the very changes that will abate it.
Alan Paton
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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.
Alan Paton
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The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.
Alan Paton
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What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
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It is not permissible for us to go on destroying the family life when we know that we are destroying it.
Alan Paton