There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.

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.

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.

If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.

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

What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?

But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.

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.

God forgives us... who am I not to forgive?

You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.

I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many different groups will be making its own creative contribution.