I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating.
Interpretation
The fear of losing love to hatred emphasizes the fragility of human connections.
This quote expresses a profound concern about the potential shift from love to hate in relationships. Alan Paton highlights the anxiety that arises when love is not reciprocated or is lost, suggesting that love can be easily turned to hatred if not nurtured with care and mutual respect. It serves as a reminder that maintaining love requires effort and understanding to prevent it from deteriorating into animosity.
In practice
During a discussion on the importance of empathy in relationships, this quote serves to remind us of the consequences of neglecting love.
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.
I've talked to nearly 30,000, people on this show, and all 30,000, had one thing in common: They all wanted validation...I would tell you that every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire.
When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife: Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance.
For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves.
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another's, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions - for and to - express it all.
Where there are no women there are no good manners
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