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It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be.

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
Dwell
Habit
Never

More quotes by Alan Paton

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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.
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But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.
Alan Paton
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Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
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When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.
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Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering.
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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.
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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?
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Something deep is touched here, something that is good and deep.
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I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
Alan Paton
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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.
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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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.
Alan Paton
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What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
Alan Paton
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One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.
Alan Paton
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Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.
Alan Paton
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It is my belief that the only power which can resist the power of fear is the power of love.
Alan Paton
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All roads lead to Johannesburg.
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.
Alan Paton
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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.
Alan Paton
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For who can stop the heart from breaking?
Alan Paton