To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.

freedom progress democracy surrender

About Alan Paton

Portrait of Alan Paton

Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African writer, anti-apartheid activist, and educator. His works include the novels Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), Too Late the Phalarope (1953), and the short story The Waste Land. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in...

More quotations tagged with “surrender”

You have to surrender to the fact that you are of too many in a highly competitive field where it is difficult to stand out. Over time, through your work, you will demonstrate who you are and what you bring to the field. Just stay with it and keep working.

time work surrender acting differentiation

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.

—Ashley Montagu

happiness surrender surprise

To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man — these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity. . . . History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own.

—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

history society heroism dignity leadership surrender decision submission hero worship

I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.

—Henry Miller

commonality surrender

History

30 Aug 2013 Added