Quotes by South African Authors - Page 15

In this lifetime we are like Superman who must remain disguised as the nerdy newspaper journalist Clark Kent, or Harry Potter and his friends who are not allowed to do magic while they are on holiday, away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... but even Harry Potter and Clark Kent get to tap into their ‘special powers’ once in a while, especially when the going gets tough.
Anthon St. Maarten
Let your work show off for you and not your ego.
Unarine Ramaru
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.
Elon Musk
The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two "hungers". There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning...There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you're happy or unhappy. You are content - you are not alone in your Spirit - you belong.
Laurens van der Post
Our route toward spiritual evolution is radiantly clear. We all have our own unique individual journey to walk toward enlightenment. Living on the brink of evolutionary change means that new ground is being broken and new consciousness is being raised. Truth is of the essence – we have no dogma, no set formula, no prescribed rules, no false standards to follow. All we have is the truth within our souls. I believe most of us want to follow the light, the path of healing and not destroying our earth, but we don't have the courage, the lion heart, to follow our individual truth toward enlightenment. Giving in to our fears, we bury our “gold” beneath the false value systems of our societies, and we attempt to comfort ourselves with the notion that we have no power or responsibility for what is happening to our world. The reality is that, potentially, we all have the power of light – the White Lion – within us. The very first step is to overcome our fears. Thereafter, our hearts will lead the way.
Linda Tucker
Now I don’t know how many people like to drive a Beetle at that kind of speed (on purpose) but I know I’d rather go down Brickmaker’s Kloof on a bicycle with no brakes! Driving any car at that speed in anything other than an expensive German luxury car on a long, straight autobahn is enough of a risk (let alone the risk of hitting anything) – but if you try that with a Beetle and add a light crosswind, factor in some rubber peeling off your tire, and you’ll more than likely find yourself dancing alone in a dark corner without any music.
Christina Engela
They tell us variety is the spice of life - and yet diversity terrifies them.
Christina Engela
I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind.I should not be ungrateful to those teachers. ~Kahlil Gibran~
Lynelle Clark Engelbrecht
Great leaders make an impact with limited resources and inefficient leaders cannot yield good returns even with abundant resources.
Gugu Mona
One day, I was on the front lawn of the property and aimed the gun at a sparrow perched high in a tree. Hazel Goldreich, Arthur's wife, was watching me and jokingly remarked that I would never hit the target. But she had hardly finished the sentence when the sparrow fell to the ground. I turned to her and was about to boast, when the Goldreichs' son Paul, then about five years old, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "David, why did you kill that bird? Its mother will be sad." My mood immediately shifted from one of pride to shame; I felt that this small boy had far more humanity than I did. It was an odd sensation for a man who was the leader of a nascent guerrilla army.
Nelson Mandela
I want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.
J.M. Coetzee
... what it really was like to live a life determined by the struggle to be free, as desert dwellers' days are determined by the struggle against thirst and those of dwellers amid snow and ice by the struggle against the numbing of cold.
Nadine Gordimer
The majority of everything has always been judged and manipulated by and on a minority's deeds
Deon Potgieter
Some women are good-looking … until they change their hairstyle.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
~ Faith lightens the path your shadowed mind has to walk ~
Michelle Horst
The behaviour of the human nervous system in certain altered states creates the illusion of dissociation from one’s body (less commonly understood in hunting and gathering shamanistic societies as possession by spirits).
James David Lewis-Williams
Most people would rather eat inside a windowless room in which they have just defecated than eat inside one in which someone else has just farted, even if the room does not have a toilet.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You should love yourself to an extent where you can't let anyone take advantage of you, no matter who they are.
Gift Gugu Mona
I realized that whilst crying over the loss, the living did not seem adequate because they were not my loved one. The room full of strangers hurt me profusely. Even as I saw thousands of young people; I felt incomplete and more saddened because the one I wanted to see was buried.
Phindiwe Nkosi
As Samson demonstrated, going bald ruins lives.
Brendan Jack
Some people are each envious of the person they used to be.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
21st Century Managers must change their thinking because they are now in the business of managing Mindsets & thinking, which impacts actions and behaviors.
Tony Dovale
Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.
Desmond Tutu
Ownership breeds slavery: with every single thing that you acquire, comes a new worry of not losing that thing.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most self-employed people remain slaves to the employed’s working hours.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I don't regret anything I've ever done in life, any choice that I've made. But I'm consumed with regret for the things I didn't do, the choices I didn't make, the things I didn't say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have to answer to. "What if..." "If only...""I wonder what would have..." You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.
Trevor Noah
Hanging around people you’re smarter than is good for your ego. Hanging around people who are smarter than you is good for your intellect.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Discussions about the ethics of suicide are immediately biased by the verb that customarily attaches to it in English. One "commits" suicide. Because this presupposes the wrongfulness of the suicide, I avoid that verb, opting instead for "carry out" suicide. This is evaluatively neutral, avoiding both the usual bias against suicide and the unusual bias in favor of it that the verb "achieve" would effect. "Carry out" is preferable to "practice", which implies something ongoing. Finally, "carry out" also implies a suicide that is completed rather than merely attempted.
David Benatar
Jealousy is not there to encourage you to make someone fail, but there to encourage one to do more than the one they envy.
Unarine Ramaru
The difference between a retiring man and a used condom is that the condom isn’t given a golden watch to inspire the illusion that it still matters to whomever that has just used it.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You will have a peace of mind when you tell the truth and people think it's a lie, than we you tell a lie hoping that people will think it's the truth; because no matter how long it takes, either will be revealed.
Gugu Mona
Sorry to disappoint you, parents - but when your kids come out as gay, bi or transgender, it is not about you.
Christina Engela
The weapon he held in his sweaty grip was one of a small consignment of prototypes received at the last port of call. The experts said it was the most powerful hand weapon in the known universe. He choked. That would soon be put to the test!
Christina Engela
We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear.
Nelson Mandela
A VIP area is nothing without not-so-important people.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In itself this Christian education is partly the product of the retreat of biblical scholarship from the faith community to the academy. In removing themselves to the academy biblical scholars have ceased to engage with the people of the issues of the contemporary faith context. ~ Janet Lees (p. 84). In Reading Other-Wise
Gerald O. West
From the sadness, learn something; from the happiness, learn something. From the setback, learn something and even from the success learn something. Never stop learning from any situation in life, for that is where the wisdom lies.
Gift Gugu Mona
Courting is an activity where a man and a woman flaunt their virtues. Dating is an activity where life exposes the other’s vices.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He feared at certain moments that the only new knowledge he would take away from this country was learning how to swim and use the telephone.
Damon Galgut
You know you made it, when your friends tell their friends that you are their friend.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It's amazing, the increase in grammatical errors in proportion to the level of hatred in the content of hate mail.
Christina Engela
Some men are so indoctrinated that they sincerely believe that other than cooking and cleaning the only thing that a woman can do better than them is being a woman.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Explore Art without a campus, it is fulfilling in the unknown.
Unarine Ramaru
In today's society conformity is more of a necessity than an option.
Johan Coetzer
We are, or rather our natural desire to evade pain and to attain pleasure is, the primary reason we do or say every single thing we do or say.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Always believe in yourself because you never know,your time could be now.
Charmaine Theron
There's a hard law, mejuffrou, that when a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.
Alan Paton
I feel like part of getting better at writing is knowing where to find that inspiration. Right after something happens to me, the first thing I’ll do is go write when those feelings are really, really fresh.
Troye Sivan
Love is beautiful, yet the worst of crimes are committed in the name of love. So when someone claims to love you, you should question their intent.
Gugu Mona
If you thought of it, don't be fooled into thinking it is a dumb Idea.
Unarine Ramaru
Our thoughts, feelings and whereabouts: Food we dish up on plates called photographs and status updates; to feed Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.; beasts with insatiable appetites.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are generally treated based on how much or little we have, earn, or know—or seem to have, earn, or know.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Sunglasses are more useful to a blind man than freedom of speech is to a man who does not think for himself.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Light-years away, another starship was also experiencing problems, though perhaps not as severe. The I.S.S. Antares was not a new ship either. Many older ships in the imperial space fleet reaching retirement age were being refitted with more modern equipment to extend their useful lives. Thus, technologically at least, Antares was currently one of the most advanced ships of the Imperial Space Fleet. Unfortunately, she was now also one of the most troubled. This is what the Phoenix refitting program had done to the Antares.
Christina Engela
You can map out a whole city according to the weight of memory, like pins on the homicide board tracking the killer's movements. But the connections get thicker and denser and more complicated all the time.
Lauren Beukes
She's even been practicing making out with the back of her hand. Which was about as effective as tickling yourself. It's why you needed other fingers, other tongues. Only other people can make you feel real.
Lauren Beukes
When our ‘thought life’ is in good shape, our thought processes shape-up, and quality decision-making becomes a norm. It is these quality decisions that will take you to your destiny. Change your thinking and affect your environment.
D.S Mashego
Success Requires a Mindset that sparks and sustains focused SWIFT ACTION.
Tony Dovale
If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.
Damon Galgut
Man would rather be loved for what he has, than be hated for what he lacks.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana