Alan Paton
Alan Paton
Alan Stewart Patonwas a South African author and anti-apartheid activist...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 January 1903
habit could-have-been has-beens
It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be.
morbid preoccupation found
I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
finished one-thing
One thing is about to be finished, but here is something that is only begun. And while I live it will continue
men inhumanity-to-man trying
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.
standards asks ifs
Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.
compassion heaven gold
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.
stars lying journey
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.
country hate heart
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.
issues novel concern
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
broken tragedy cry-the-beloved-country
The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.
goes-on cry-the-beloved-country destroying
It is not permissible for us to go on destroying the family life when we know that we are destroying it.
eye cry-the-beloved-country
Happy the eyes that can close
pain kindness suffering
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.
country children hate
There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.