Alan Paton

Novelist

1903-01-11 – 1988-04-12

Alan Paton was a South African novelist, educator, and anti-apartheid activist. He is best known for the novel Cry, the Beloved Country. He also played a public role in liberal opposition to apartheid-era policy.

Books by Alan Paton

Cry, the Beloved Country
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Too late the phalarope
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Prentice Hall Literature -- Platinum
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Quotes by Alan Paton

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.
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They were your friends?Yes, they were my friends.And they will leave you to suffer alone?Now I see it.And until this, were they friends you could trust?I could trust them.I see what you mean. You mean they were the kind of friends that a good man could choose, upright, hard-working, obeying the law?Tell me, were they such friends?And now they leave you alone?Did you not see it before?I saw it.
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I have always found that actively lovingsaves one from a morbid preoccupationwith the shortcomings of society.
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I have always found that actively lovingsaves one from a morbid preoccupationwith the shortcomings of society.
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They were your friends?Yes, they were my friends.And they will leave you to suffer alone?Now I see it.And until this, were they friends you could trust?I could trust them.I see what you mean. You mean they were the kind of friends that a good man could choose, upright, hard-working, obeying the law?Tell me, were they such friends?And now they leave you alone?Did you not see it before?I saw it.
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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.
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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.
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But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.
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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.
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God forgives us... who am I not to forgive?
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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.
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And money is not something to go mad about ... Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children.
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To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.
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But sorrow is better than fear. For fear impoverishes always, while sorrow may enrich.
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