I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
Interpretation
Practicing love helps divert attention from societal flaws.
This quote by Alan Paton suggests that actively engaging in love and compassion can prevent individuals from becoming overly absorbed in negative thoughts about societal problems. It emphasizes the importance of love as a force that can uplift and inspire, steering one's focus away from the shortcomings and deficiencies of the world around them.
In practice
During a speech about community service, one might quote this to highlight the power of love in addressing social issues.
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.
Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.
One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?
It is not permissible to add to one's possesions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
Matthew,' she said, 'have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?' For a moment he did not answer. Taking up the decanter he held it to the light. 'Robin can go anywhere, do anything,' Nora continued, 'because she forgets, and I nowhere because I remember.' She came toward him. 'Matthew,' she said, 'you think I have always been like this. Once I was remorseless, but this is another love β it goes everywhere; there is no place for it to stop β it rots me away.
Perhaps love is a minor madness. And as with madness, it's unendurable alone. The one person who can relieve us is of course the sole person we cannot go to: the one we love. So instead we seek out allies, even among strangers and wives, fellow patients who, if they can't touch the edge of our particular sorrow, have felt something that cuts nearly as deep.
Falling in love was not really a choice; it just struck me.
To be in love involves the most irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies, and that possession of the beloved will confer, not merely frequent ecstasies, but settled, fruitful, deep-rooted, lifelong happiness.
The greatest romance is with the Infinite. _x000D_ You have no idea how beautiful life can be. _x000D_ When you suddenly find God everywhere, _x000D_ when He comes and talks to you and guides you, _x000D_ the romance of divine love has begun.
Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.
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