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 wisd...
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.
Life has ... taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself but to leave the result to God.
For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
When men are ruled by fear they strive to prevent the very changes that will abate it.
One thing is about to be finished, but here is something that is only begun. And while I live it will continue
Nothing is every quiet, except for fools.
It is not permissible for us to go on destroying the family life when we know that we are destroying it.
But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.
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...
There is a hard law. When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.
I have always found that actively lovingsaves one from a morbid preoccupationwith the shortcomings of society.
The humble man reached in his pocket for his sacred book, and began to read. It was this world alone that was certain.
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 Afri...
He was reluctant to open it, for once such a thing is opened, it cannot be shut again.
Aye, even the name of a river that runs no more. Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling...
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,...
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.
[S]orrow is better than fear. For fear impoverishes always, while sorrow may enrich ... Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey, a terrible journey, but sorrow is at least an arriving.
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...