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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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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
Seek
Expect
Leave
Taught
Endeavors
Results
Sustenance
Success
Endeavor
Nothing
Inevitable
Life
Result

More quotes by Alan Paton

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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.
Alan Paton
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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.
Alan Paton
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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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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.
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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For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
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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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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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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Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
Alan Paton
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I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating.
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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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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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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There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills.
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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Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey,a terrible journey, but sorrow is at least an arrival. When the storm threatens, a man is afraid for his house. But when the house is destroyed, there is something to do. About a storm he can do nothing, but he can rebuild a house.
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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I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
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