Alan Paton

Happy the eyes that can close

— Alan Paton

There is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love.

— Alan Paton

To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.

— Alan Paton

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

— 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

Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal.

— Alan Paton

“Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who indeed knows why there can be comfort in a world of desolation?…

— Alan Paton

One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.

— Alan Paton

“ — This world is full of trouble, umfundisi. — Who knows it better? — Yet you believe? Kumalo looked at him…

— Alan Paton

Something deep is touched here, something that is good and deep.

— Alan Paton

I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many…

— Alan Paton

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely…

— Alan Paton

St. Francis of Assisi taught me that there is a wound in the Creation and that the greatest use we could make…

— Alan Paton

We do not work for men. We work for the land and the people. We do not even work for money.

— Alan Paton

For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into…

— Alan Paton

The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if…

— Alan Paton

The only way in which one can make endurable man's inhumanity to man, and man's destruction of his own environment, is to…

— Alan Paton

“When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, “Where are your wounds?” and if…

— Alan Paton

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills...

— Alan Paton

For who can stop the heart from breaking?

— Alan Paton

There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields,…

— Alan Paton

Forgive us all, for we all have trespasses.

— Alan Paton

There is a man sleeping in the grass. And over him is gathering the greatest storm of all his days. Such lightening…

— Alan Paton

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

— Alan Paton

“They stopped at one of these half-tank houses ... where they were greeted by a young girl, who herself seemed like no…

— Alan Paton