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Quotes by South-african Authors
"Using the power you derive from the discovery of the truth about racism in South Africa, you will help us to remake our part of the world into a corner of the globe on which all - of which all of humanity can be proud."
"As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies, as a form of abstract thought. I dont wish to deny the uses of the intellect, but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere."
"There's only so much you can do, but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do."
"Not everyone who condemns masturbation can masturbate."
"Man cannot be homophobic without having concerned himself with another's sex life."
"I had called her up a couple of weeks before then, because I had heard this vicious rumour that she did not like the movie. It was very upsetting for me. I am very sensitive to that, because I am portraying her life and did not want her to be unhappy."
"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."
"It is a sign of immaturity to believe that being older than someone (automatically) makes you more (mentally) mature than them."
"In fiction: we find the predictable boring. In real life: we find the unpredictable terrifying."
"Many millions of pregnancies-many if not most of which have each led to the birth of at least one child-were each used as nothing but a conspicuous means to a secret end called the evasion of abortion."
"People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violence, that's how they'll react. But if you say, 'We want peace, we want stability,' we can then do a lot of things that will contribute towards the progress of our society."
"We are slaves whose masters are dead. For we are mostly controlled by doctrines which were established centuries heretofore."
"Do not risk your life for someone who does not care about you."
"Keep dreaming because your dream will be the message that brings change to the others."
"If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers."
"Yes was a band where we could explore some of those ideas, but I knew that if I wanted to get into orchestral music and make a living at it, movies seemed to be a perfect spot."
"If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues."
"Humility is the acknowledgement that without God you wouldn't have made it thus far."
"The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture."
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
"A matter that seems to be very clear in terms of the alternative view, is what do you expect to happen in Africa with regard to immune systems, where people are poor, subject to repeat infections and all of that. Surely you would expect their immune systems to collapse."
"What I took out of them was that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and that a hero was a man who would not break even under the most trying circumstances."
"You know you walk in the light when the enemy keeps reminding you of your past mistakes, because the enemy's role is to derail into darkness."
"Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual."
"Thank you Father for another day, for another week, for another month and for another year. Your grace is sufficient for me."
"There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind."
"And doing a film in that period, and having to really celebrate what they wore back then, how they sat and how they spoke. You know, what the etiquette was back then for a lady. All of those things are like putting on a wig and transforming yourself, which I love."
"I guess there are very few actors that I've worked with that I would like to work with again. You never think you'll have that chance and, if we didn't do Italian Job together, there wouldn't be another one that could be right."
"You cannot be truly humble, unless you truly believe that life can and will go on without you."
"We cannot keep on blaming the past leaders about the present circumstances. We need to be mindful that if we do nothing to improve the present circumstances, our children will also blame us in the future."
"I think today women are very scared to celebrate themselves, because then they just get labeled."
"I don't want to be rich yet live a life of unhappiness, but I also don't want to be poor because I have never seen happiness in poverty."
"Between Monday and Saturday men make an audience. On Sunday, they make a congregation."
"I used to be a fan of proportional representation, but I am not at all now I have seen it in action."
"Some disabled people spend a significant amount of their energy on trying to come across as abled or as not that disabled."
"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."
"For all my criticisms of the current system, it doesn't mean that I would like to return to the old one."
"Better still - your history has shown how powerful a moral catharsis expressed through popular resistance to injustice can sometimes be; I have in mind the grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War."
"On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned."
"We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low."
"We, in the interest of the so-called progress, have been persuaded to leave the production and at times the cooking of our food to companies whose owners and employees make a living by exploiting our busyness or laziness and our innate hunger to continue living."
"When I consider what it was that moved me to join the Communist Party, I have to cast my mind back for more than a quarter of a century to try and ascertain what precisely my motives at that time were."
"You must show the world that you abhor fighting."
"The employment laws are completely unrealistic. You cannot overcome that in only 10 years. It will take at least another generation before young people are properly qualified."
"Don't obsess over having the 'latest' version of a product. For there was a time that the previous version was the latest."
"A social critic is someone whose work revolves around where and how our successes are failing us."
"South Africa was to evolve into the most pernicious example of the criminal practise of colonial and white minority domination."
"Let your words to be a cushion to those who are around you, especially to those who are in a vulnerable state."
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