Alan Paton Quotes

Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.

There is nothing you can do about it but sit back and watch.

I've come to the conclusion that it's not really possible to help others.

I don't believe in expending energy on something you can't do anything about. If there was some easy way of fixing things, I'd probably do it.

I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway.

It is impossible to do anything for anyone.

You do not defend a world that is already lost.

Let whatever is going to happen to me happen. I'm expecting the worst for myself and I'm resigned to it.

Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.

'Weary Willie' is very real to me. He is a man who has given up. The boat has gone and left him. The cards are stacked against him. He's content to make out with what he's got. He knows he'll go no further.

There's not anything, I don't think, that I can do or accomplish.

Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us!

I do get cynical, but what can you do? It doesn't make any difference.

Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

I cannot change anything, so I don't want to think about what I would have done.

I've stopped many things such as healthy eating. What's the point? In this post-truth era, I feel increasingly powerless.

Don't imagine that a word you say is going to make a blind bit of difference.

That speaking the words, even if true, had little power to change the inevitable or even make him feel much better.

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, roll darkly down the torrent of his fate.

I can’t fight the sun. I can only watch helplessly as it drags me into a day that I’ve been dreading for months. Katniss Everdeen

I'm not a fatalist; even if I were, what could I do about it?

Some people are beyond help, just accept that.

What sense is there in continuing when one has seen the future?