Quotes by South African Authors - Page 12

Being shy is a symptom of a low self-esteem.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Cautiously, he moved further out, checking the roofs, doors, windows. Nothing. He walked out further, keeping against the wooden wall of a building, just in case. His heart was pounding in his ears. Strange, isn’t it? You could be in hundreds of fights, but everyone always seemed like the first time. A million different things could happen, go completely wrong. Then it might well be his last. Where is he? Which building?
Christina Engela
An ignorant man who is regarded as knowledgeable by people who are more ignorant than him is still ignorant.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When we see a good-looking woman with a not-so-good-looking man, we assume that the man must have a good bank balance. When we see a good-looking man with a not-so-good-looking woman, we assume that she must be good in bed.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The idea that all people can and should live together in peace is not really a new one - but yet in practice it is very young indeed.
Christina Engela
But the interesting cases are those where the conflict remains obstinately in place however much we ponder the problem. These are the cases where we are tempted to conclude that "intuition cannot be trusted." In these situations we need to improve our intuition, to debug it, but the pressure on us is to abandon intuition and rely on equations instead.
Seymour Papert
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
J.M. Coetzee
I like visionaries because they choose to see the best in the worst of situations.
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
A salary is, to a man's employer, what his wife's vagina is to his wife: a tool used to (1) reward; and (2) control him.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Being a single mother should not stop you from helping your children to reach their full potential.
Gugu Mona
Humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all.
Andrew Murray
As common as unplanned sex. As uncommon as a planned child.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
This is what I find so strange: we are not necessarily kind to animals. We use them, we eat them. But we don’t like them to suffer. Yet humans must. They have to wait for the great Vet himself to decide how long their anguish must last and how deep it must reach. And He has, as far as I can see, a habit of waiting a long, long time before deciding to end their misery.
Beverly Rycroft
Leaders should never alienate themselves from the poor, if their main aim is to alleviate poverty.
Gift Gugu Mona
Achieving success is your ability to eliminate the weakness and biases that are inherent within yourself
Julian Pencilliah
Those who worry stumble long The Way.Those who pray have no time to stray.
Errol Anthony Smythe
The void inside me starts to fill, but my heart has holes, and whatever it holds will run out, leaving me empty once again.
Danielle Esplin
The bad parts of the statute are not judicially severable, I consider, from the rest of its provisions that deal with imprisonment. Their roots are entangled too tenaciously in the surrounding soil for a clean extraction to be feasible. The conclusion to which I accordingly come is that we are left with no option but to declare those provisions as a whole to be constitutionally invalid on account of their objectionable overbreadth.
John Didcott
Money brings about personal convenience rather than personal satisfaction or fulfilment. It will entertain you but it will never give you true peace. Money will buy you the most expensive house but it will never give you a peaceful sleep.
D.S Mashego
Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but, most important, it finds homes for us everywhere.
Hazel Rochman
Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
i love playing and chatting with children...feeding and putting them to bed with a little story, and being away from the family has troubled me throughout my...life. i like relaxing at the house, reading quietly, taking in the sweet smell that comes from the pots, sitting around a table with the family and taking out my wife and children. when you can no longer enjoy these simple pleasures something valuable is taken away from your life and you feel it in your daily work.
Nelson Mandela
To be a better cook, cook more. To be a better writer, read more.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I’m no dynamic career woman. I don’t network or do lunch – I work because I have to. My job does not define me, but I try to do it well.
Tracy Engelbrecht
Never offer unsolicited advice. The receiver might not know that you are smarter than him.
C.J. Langenhoven
You can never run from your past; it defines who you are today. But, use your Awo given intelligence and enjoy the future…because THAT only comes once.’ VAALBARA The Land of Shadows
Michelle Horst
Love is more beautiful when it's real.
Gift Gugu Mona
Some women sleep their way to the top. Most men sleep their way to the bottom.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It’s only when we are able to exceed our rigid interpretations, and we start defining love in it’s totality, that we realize that love is everywhere
Julian Pencilliah
There are literally a million ways to deal with any situation and Madiba was the best teacher in tutoring me to see those ways, but lying was never an option.
Zelda la Grange
Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.
Nelson Mandela
It's why you need other fingers, other tongues. Only other people can make you feel real.
Lauren Beukes
While there is no shame in being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex - or even straight (but not narrow) - there is most certainly shame and dishonor in being a homophobe, a transphobe and a bigot.
Christina Engela
Dancing is surely the most basic and relevant of all forms of expression. Nothing else can so effectively give outward form to an inner experience. Poetry and music exist in time. Painting and architecture are a part of space. But only the dance lives at once in both space and time. In it the creator and the thing created, the artist and the expression, are one. Each participates completely in the other. There could be no better metaphor for an understanding of the mechanics of the cosmos.
Lyall Watson
Committees kill unconventional ideas for a living.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He is not, he hopes, a sentimentalist. He tries not to sentimentalize the animals he kills, or to sentimentalize Bev Shaw. He avoids saying to her 'I don't know how you do it,' in order not to have to hear her say in return, 'Someone has to do it.
J.M. Coetzee
When you set out to change the world, the job seems insurmountable, but each of us can do his or her small part to effect change. We change the world when we choose to create a world of forgiveness in our own hearts and minds.
Desmond Tutu
What must I do now?” Mrs. Muller considered her silently for a while. “You are still a child. You must go where you are told and do as you are told. But it won’t always be so. Soon you will be in charge of yourself. Until that time: Be aware. Listen. Look. Touch. Smell. And remember. But for now, you must go home.
Masha du Toit
Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Our parents would not be ‘The best parents in the world’ (to us) if they were not our parents.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Nothing takes God by surprise, not even cancer.
Shirley Corder
This is my skin. This is not your skin, yet you are still under it.
Iain Thomas
Instead of being regarded as intelligent or knowledgeable, many a woman would rather be regarded as beautiful or good in the kitchen; many a man, as handsome or good in bed.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Females and boys are the only creatures that propose others for friendship. As for the rest of us, friendship sort of just happens.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Be proud of who you are.
Caroline Greyling
Don’t obsess over having the 'latest' version of a product. For there was a time that the previous version was the latest.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He who is jealous is better off not dating someone who is bisexual.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Wealth seldom fails to breed the fear of poverty.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He was like a jalapeño, bright and smooth, but dangerously hot. A small part of me wanted to bite him.
Tarryn Fisher
[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
I can feel the power of the words doing the work. Must trust language more.
Antony Sher
Most parents are not really ‘supportive’ because they want their kid(s) to succeed; they ‘support’ their kid(s) as an attempt to avoid appearing to have bred a failure, or, failures … in the eyes of their peers and/or neighbours.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When you run your own race, don't worry about the next person's pace; mind yours, after all this is your own race not theirs.
Gift Gugu Mona
Beliefs are conclusions reached by men who are lazy to think for themselves.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I saw the figure of 178 Billion wasted/stolen from the people of a country by its corrupt and inept government. Surely such a figure could truly transfom and change the entire country; education, health, shooling, entrepreneurial environment... of millions of people, rather than be secreted away as a few more 0000's in global bank accounts for the greeders.We need to Rethink Public service, values, ethics and leadership.
Tony Dovale
Most priests wish they were as righteous as they seem to most members of their congregations.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To be full of being is to live as a body-soul. One name for the experience of full being is joy.
J.M. Coetzee
It's disheartening that most Christians will still miss Heaven because Christians today have forgotten that Heaven is meant for those who declare Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, then confirm that declaration with action.
Gugu Mona
Something clicked inside Ortez mind, like the bolt of a door latch being released. Man’s first encounter with sentient alien life was a disaster called the Gimp War in the history books. The aliens simply began an all out onslaught without any warning. Fortunately the Human race proved a little more difficult to dispose of than the aliens thought. The Gimp, or Ruminarii as they were called, were driven off and hadn’t been heard from since. Their origins were still a mystery. This was not a Ruminarii ship, but this encounter might have similar repercussions. And Commander Dayne Ortez aged 26, realized the meaning of this.
Christina Engela