Top 80 Alan Paton Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “They say that higher wages will cause the mines to close down. Then what is it worth, this mining industry? And why should it be kept alive, if it is only our poverty that keeps it alive? They say it makes the country rich, but what do we see of these riches? Is it we that must be kept poor so that others may stay rich?”

— Alan Paton

52. “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

53. “Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that’s the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.”

— Alan Paton

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

— Alan Paton

55. “Therefore let us sell our labour for what it is worth. And if an industry cannot buy our labour, let that industry die. But let us not sell our labour cheap to keep an industry alive.”

— Alan Paton

56. “Forgive us all, for we all have trespasses.”

— Alan Paton

57. “I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but 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.”

— Alan Paton

58. “He pondered long over this, for might not another man, returning to another valley, have found none of these things? Why was it given to one man to have his pain transmuted into gladness? Why was it given to one man to have such an awareness of God?”

— Alan Paton

59. “There is a hard law. When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.”

— Alan Paton

60. “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

61. “For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children. Money is for security, and for dreams, and for hopes, and for purposes. Money is for buying the fruits of the earth, of the land where you were born.”

— Alan Paton

62. “For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”

— Alan Paton

63. “We do what is in us, and why it is in us, that is also a secret. It is Christ in us, crying that men may be succoured and forgiven, even when He Himself is forsaken.”

— Alan Paton

64. “Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.”

— Alan Paton

65. “The Afrikaner has nowhere to go, and thats why he would rather destroy himself than capitulate.”

— Alan Paton

66. “He was reluctant to open it, for once such a thing is opened, it cannot be shut again.”

— Alan Paton

67. “His son had gone astray in the great city, where so many others had gone astray before him, and where many others would go astray after him, until there was found some great secret that as yet no man had discovered.”

— Alan Paton

68. “And that next day, he was in the black mood, what we call the swartgalligheid, which is the black gall. And the heart is black too, and the world is black, and one can tell oneself that it will pass, but these are only words that one speaks to oneself, for while it is there it is no comfort that it will pass.”

— Alan Paton

69. “And what was there evil in their desires, in their hunger? That men should walk upright in the land where they were born, and be free to use the fruits of the earth, what was there evil in it? Yet men were afraid, with a fear that was deep, deep in the heart, a fear so deep that they hid their kindness, or brought it out with fierceness and anger, and hid it behind fierce and frowning eyes. They were afraid because they were so few. And such fear could not be cast out, but by love.”

— Alan Paton

70. “I do this not because I am courageous and honest, but because it is the only way to end the conflict of my deepest soul.”

— Alan Paton

71. “It is my own belief that the only power which can resistthe power of fear is the power of love. It’s a weak thing anda tender thing; men despise and deride it. But I look for theday when in South Africa we shall realize that the only last-ing and worth-while solution of our grave and profoundproblems lies not in the use of power, but in that under-standing and compassion without which human life is anintolerable bondage, condemning us all to an existence ofviolence, misery and fear.”

— Alan Paton

72. “What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?”

— Alan Paton

73. “He had come to tell his brother that power corrupts, that a man who fights for justice must himself be cleansed and purified, that love is greater than force. And none of these things had he done. God have mercy on me, Christ have mercy on me. He turned to the door, but it was locked and bolted. Brother had shut out brother, from the same womb had they come.”

— Alan Paton

74. “They were silent till the man passed, and then Kumalo said, in all my days I have known no one as you are. And Msimangu said sharply, I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all.”

— Alan Paton

75. “Indeed, there is something in this valley, some spirit and some life, and much to talk about in the huts. Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.”

— Alan Paton

76. “We are grateful for the saints, he says, who lift up the heart in the days of our distress. Would we do less? For do we less, there are no saints to lift up any heart. If Christ be Christ he says, true Lord of Heaven, true Lord of Men, what is there that we would not do no matter what our suffering may be?”

— Alan Paton

77. “There are many sides to this difficult problem. And people persist in discussing soil-erosion, and tribal decay, and lack of schools, and crime, as though they were all parts of the matter. If you think long enough about it, you will be brought to consider republics, and bilingualism, and immigration, and Palestine, and God knows what. So in a way it is best not to think about it at all.”

— Alan Paton

78. “Tomorrow they would all go home, all except his son. And he would stay in the place where they would put him, in the great prison in Pretoria, in the barred and solitary cell; and mercy failing, would stay there till he was hanged. Aye, but the hand that had murdered had once pressed the mother’s breast into the thirsting mouth, had stolen into the father’s hand when they went out into the dark. Aye, but the murderer afraid of death had once been a child afraid of the night.”

— Alan Paton

79. “His eyes fill with tears, his deep gentleness returns to him. He goes to her and lifts her from the floor to the chair. Inarticulately he strokes her face, his heart filled with pity.–God forgives us, he says. Who am I not to forgive? Let us pray.”

— Alan Paton

80. “I cannot stop you from thinking your thoughts. It is good that a young man has such deep thoughts. But hate no man, and desire power over no man.”

— Alan Paton

81. “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.”

— Alan Paton

82. “Deep down the fear of a man who lives in a world not made for him, whose own world is slipping away, dying, being destroyed, beyond any recall.”

— Alan Paton

83. “There is no point in imagining that if one had been there, one could have prevented a thing that had happened only because it had not been prevented.”

— Alan Paton

84. “He is a missionary and believes in God, intensely I mean, but it takes all kinds to make a world.”

— Alan Paton

85. “And he was silent again, for who is not silent when someone is dead, who was a small bright boy?”

— Alan Paton

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

— Alan Paton

87. “Does he repent him or is there only room for his fear?”

— Alan Paton

88. “Then he gave himself over to deep and earnest prayer, and after each petition he raised his eyes and looked to the east. And the east lightened and lightened, till he knew that the time was not far off. And when he expected it, he rose to his feet and took off his hat and laid it down on the earth, and clasped his hands before him. And while he stood there the sun rose in the east.”

— Alan Paton

89. “It is true that the victim was a black man, and there is a school of thought which would regard such an offence as less serious when the victim is black.”

— Alan Paton