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To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.

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
Men
Tasks
Poverty
Responsibility
Justice
Society
Free
Reforming
Give
Reformation
Giving
Task

More quotes by Alan Paton

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But sorrow is better than fear. For fear impoverishes always, while sorrow may enrich.
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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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There is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love.
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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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I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many different groups will be making its own creative contribution.
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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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Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply... For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
Alan Paton
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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.
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.
Alan Paton
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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
Alan Paton
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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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For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing.
Alan Paton
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Life has not taught me to expect nothing, but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God.
Alan Paton
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But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.
Alan Paton
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When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.
Alan Paton
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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?
Alan Paton
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Forgive us all, for we all have trespasses.
Alan Paton
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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.
Alan Paton
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There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills.
Alan Paton
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Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
Alan Paton