Quotes by South African Authors - Page 5

Thou shalt not follow someone, merely because they are following you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thanks to the internet, you can provoke thoughts of those in mansions, from the uncomfortableness of your shack.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not think that thou be a leader, merely because thee be having more than 0 followers.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Are we all, at heart, just Internet trolls?
Sarah Lotz
In terms of the Internet, it's like humanity acquiring a collective nervous system. Whereas previously we were more like a [?], like a collection of cells that communicated by diffusion. With the advent of the Internet, it was suddenly like we got a nervous system. It's a hugely impactful thing.
Elon Musk
During this time (at high school) I discovered the Public Library... It was here that I found a source of knowledge and the means to acquire it by reading, a habit of learning which I still follow to this day. I also became interested in chemistry and gradually accumulated enough test tubes and other glassware to do chemical experiments, using small quantities of chemicals purchased from a pharmacy supply house. I soon graduated to biochemistry and tried to discover what gave flowers their distinctive colours. I made the (to me) astounding discovery that the pigments I extracted changed their colours when I changed the pH of the solution.
Sydney Brenner
People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite... Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.
Nelson Mandela
People who talk too much are tiresome, especially those who are not informative, thought-provoking, or funny.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
All roads lead to Johannesburg. If you are white or if you are black they lead to Johannesburg. If the crops fail, there is work in Johannesburg. If there are taxes to be paid, there is work in Johannesburg. If the farm is too small to be divided further, some must go to Johannesburg. If there is a child to be born that must be delivered in secret, it can be delivered in Johannesburg.
Alan Paton
Indeed, there is something in this valley, some spirit and some life, and much to talk about in the huts. Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.
Alan Paton
Never argue with a fool, people might not notice the difference
Niq Mhlongo
I do not like to think too much on this Africa. It is too large and too empty,” he said. “People like De Buys, they astonish me with their courage – or perhaps it is a lack in them; they cannot imagine. I think that is one way to be not afraid: in a covered wagon looking at the piece of the horizon your mind can hold, and do not suffer thoughts about endless lands and unknowable things.
Claire Robertson
Yes, many years of oppression may have complicated things and it seems impossible for blacks to create their own means of production. But, I truly believe that we must start somewhere. We must reimagine a world where we are proudly black and support all things black in order to reinvent the economic wheel. We talk. We produce theories. We prove ourselves and and and... But we must also put our money where our mouths and theories are. This is why we fight each and every single day.
Malebo Sephodi
Moer and more he is convinced that English is an unfit medium for the truth in South Africa.
J.M. Coetzee
This is Africa, my friends … These folks do things differently.” Sven Taxel, who regards himself as an expert on South Africa because he has read Wilbur Smith, Rian Malan and André Brink, tries to calm his fellow congregation members.
Harry Kalmer
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.
Alan Paton
Have you a room that you could let?""Yes, I have a room that I could let, but I do not want to let it. I have only two rooms, and there are six of us already, and the boys and girls are growing up. But school books cost money, and my husband is ailing, and when he is well it is only thirty-five shillings a week. And six shillings of that is for the rent, and three shillings of that is for the rent, and three shillings for travelling, and a shilling that we may all be buried decently, and a shilling for the books, and three shillings is for clothes and that is little enough, and a shilling for my husband's beer, and a shilling for his tobacco, and these I do not grudge for he is a decent man and does not gamble or spend his money on other women, and a shilling for the Church, and a shilling for sickness. And that leaves seventeen shillings for food for six, and we are always hungry. Yes I have a room but I do not want to let it. How much could you pay?""I could pay three shillings a week for the room.""And I would not take it.""Three shillings and sixpence.""Three shillings and sixpence. You can't fill your stomach on privacy. You need privacy when your children are growing up, but you can't fill your stomach on it. Yes, I shall take three shillings and sixpence.
Alan Paton
When I look back at where I come from, I realize it's for a good reason that God changed my life.
Gift Gugu Mona
Success requires, a human touch, intuitive powers and provocative thinking processes
Julian Pencilliah
You will need to know when to be assertive and wise enough to know when to exercise patience
Julian Pencilliah
When there is no leverage or no incentive, all brains get stuck.
Tony "Mindset Matters" Dovale
Do your beliefs create your goals or are your beliefs a result of achieving your goals?
Julian Pencilliah
We need to awaken the intellectual maverick within ourselves
Julian Pencilliah
Being surrounded by successful people, doesn't mean you made it.
Unarine Ramaru
[O]nly the sea is like a human being . . .always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on; and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It is always asking a question and it never gets the answer.
Olive Schreiner
Some mommies and daddies find it hard to acceptKids who are different to the normal set.
Christina Engela
But not all kids are exactly the same,Even when they share the same name.
Christina Engela
Some kids are both or neitherAnd don't want to have to choose, either.
Christina Engela
Some kids also think it makes them coolWhen they pick on other kids, being cruel.
Christina Engela
History teaches usthat men and nationsonly behave wiselyonce they have exhaustedall other alternatives."--
Abba Eban
Once born, how long a man will live matters. Once dead, how long he has lived doesn’t.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When faced with trials, pray so that you cannot be the trial yourself.
Gift Gugu Mona
Those who worry stumble long The Way.Those who pray have no time to stray.
Errol Anthony Smythe
It is interesting how - depending on the person in power - our LGBT issues are either right at the top of the list - or right at the very bottom. And almost always for exactly the wrong reasons.
Christina Engela
Ironically people will thank a deity for "letting" them win a race, but blame a "witch" if they stumble, look for the nearest suspect, and kill them. Why not blame the deity? Why not accept the setback as easily as they accept the victory/ Time people grew up some, I think - and stopped looking for theoretical "somebodies" to blame for their own misfortunes.
Christina Engela
Victory honours the brave.
Gift Gugu Mona
The issue here revolves around the "right to be different (Mattos 1994:16). People have difficulty living harmoniously with those who are different. Because of this, they discriminate against anyone who has any distinctive characteristic whether of belief, religion, language, thought or color. ~ Valmor Da Silva p. 124 in Reading Other-Wise
Gerald O. West
Reason is what we look for when we confused, but it should be in comfort that we look for reasons.
Freddy Sipho Mahhumane
Show that you care and share with those who are in need.
Gugu Mona
Patriotism is a myth conceived by those old rogues to draw us into the infernal game. Let them fight as they will, but we want no part of it.
Wilbur Smith
There are patterns because we try to find them. A desperate attempt at order because we can't face the terror that it might all be random.
Lauren Beukes
People who get offended by your not saying 'Thank you!' … after they’ve paid you a compliment were merely desperate to be thanked.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
What did I get in return? Coldness and emotional detachment. You are selfish and bitter and you wouldn’t know a good thing if it fell out of the sky at your feet.
Tarryn Fisher
Well, that is what you risk when you fall in love. You risk losing your dignity.
J.M. Coetzee
A historian is a risk-terrified prophet.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Do not risk your life for someone who doesn't care about you.
Gugu Mona
Do not risk your life for someone who does not care about you.
Gift Gugu Mona
If I had wings I would fly,I'd soar on high where only eagles dareI'd let them rip, I'd let them tear, until all that remained was me bare.
Michelle Horst
Sometimes when a person does things to deliberately hurt you,All you need to do is shift atleast six steps back to observe the situation.If it is worth enduring, move two steps forward.If not, turn around and bless them with your back.
Nomthandazo Tsembeni
Moving on is the hardest thing to do, when that person made your life worth living for. Nomatter how difficult it's but we have to let go for own sake. Remember that your life is more precious than anything in this world.
S.Z.J. Mtshali
Contrast is important in life. We understand what light is because we can compare it with what we know is dark. Sweet is made sweeter after we eat something bitter. It’s the very same with sadness. And it’s important to experience sadness, to embrace it in order to truly know happiness. I was just a flat line until he came along. And maybe now I’m hurting. But isn’t that what love is supposed to do? Make you feel, make you brave, make you look at yourself more carefully?
Tarryn Fisher
What 'primitive' men called gossip, 'civilized' men call news.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Advanced weaponry, victories in battle and space travel do not an advanced species or civilization make.
Christina Engela
You're a hope-killer. 'Cause at least if you'd done it on your back, that's something we c'n understand. Something we c'n do ourselves. But kindness? Luck like that-- it's a million-to-one chance, and you already took the one chance going.
Michelle Diener
A live broke man is 'luckier' than a dead rich man.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I am not lucky, but I am favoured because luck runs out; but God's favour will abide with me forever.
Gugu Mona
If you are lucky, one day you'll get the chance to have your life defined by how much you loved and were loved by someone else.
Iain S. Thomas
Worry is to human beings … what a condom is to a man with erectile dysfunction.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Being in a hurry is the father of stress and worry.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Chances are that whatever that you are worried about—be it a person or a thing—isn’t worried about you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana