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But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.

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
Offences
Offence
Punish
Restore
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More quotes by Alan Paton

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All roads lead to Johannesburg.
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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But perhaps when you were too obedient, and did not do openly what others did, and were quiet in church and hard-working at school, then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.
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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Something deep is touched here, something that is good and deep.
Alan Paton
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We do not work for men. We work for the land and the people. We do not even work for money.
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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Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey, a terrible journey. But, sorrow is at least an arriving.
Alan Paton
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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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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.
Alan Paton
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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)
Alan Paton
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Happy the eyes that can close
Alan Paton
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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.
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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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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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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Nosecond Johannesburg isneededuponthe earth.One is enough.
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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For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
Alan Paton
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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.
Alan Paton