Alan Paton Quotes

Alan Paton is perhaps most famous for Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), which follows the story of Stephen Kumalo. A South African writer, Alan Paton wrote biographies, autobiographies, short stories, and novels. Here are a few quotes from Alan Paton.

• "Perhaps I could have saved him, with only a word, two words, out of my mouth. Perhaps I could have save us all. But I never spoke them."
  - Alan Paton, Too Late Phalarope
  
  
• "And if I write it down, people may know that he was two men, and that one was brave and gentle; and they may know, when they judge and condemn, that this one struggled with himself in darkness and alone, calling on his God and on the Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy on him. Therefore when the other Pieter van Vlaanderen did not entreat, this one entreated; and when the other did not repent, this one repented; and because there is no such magic, this one, the brave and gentle, was destroyed with him."
  - Alan Paton, Too Late Phalarope
  
  
• "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
  
  
• "To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man."
  - Alan Paton
  
  
• "You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right."
  - Alan Paton
  
  
• "I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating."
  - Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
  
  
• "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, Cry, the Beloved Country
  
  
• "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
  
  
• "What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?"
  - Alan Paton
  
  
• "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
  
  
• "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
  
  
• "If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing."
  - Alan Paton