Bryce Courtenay - The Power of One (1989)

25 Sourced Quotes

View all Bryce Courtenay Quotes
I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed.

Bryce Courtenay
I wish to cup knowledge in my hand and drink it as one drinks water by the side of the stream.

Bryce Courtenay
One thing is certain in life. Just when things are going well, soon afterward they are certain to go wrong. It's just the way things are meant to be.

Bryce Courtenay
.. God is too busy making the sun come up and go down and watching so the moon floats just right in the sky to be concerned with color... only man wants always God should be there to condemn this one and save that one. Always it is man who wants to make heaven and hell. God is too busy training the bees to make honey and every morning opening up all the new flowers for business.

Bryce Courtenay
Let me conclude by saying in my experience the glittering prizes in life come more to those who persevere despite setback and disappointment than they do to the exceptionally gifted who, with the confidence of the talents bestowed upon them, often pursue the tasks leading to success with less determination.

Bryce Courtenay
Sometimes, very occasionally, you do your best boxing with your mouth.

Bryce Courtenay
It is better just to get on with the business of living and minding your own business and maybe, if God likes the way you do things, he may just let you flower for a day or a night. But don't go pestering and begging and telling him all your stupid little sins, that way you will spoil his day.

Bryce Courtenay
Inside all people there is love, also the need to take care of the other man who is his brother. Inside everyone is a savage, but there is also happening tenderness and compassion.

Bryce Courtenay
Your brain, Peekay, has two functions; it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library. Use it to tell you where to look, and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been

Bryce Courtenay
As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.

Bryce Courtenay
You've got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive. Though once you know the rules, it is not too hard to play the game.

Bryce Courtenay
It's nothing to be ashamed of. There comes a time in everything when you don't know something.

Bryce Courtenay
Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance. -Doc

Bryce Courtenay
I knew then that the person on the outside was only a shell, a presence to be seen and provoked. Inside was the real me, where my tears joined the tears of all the sad people to form the three waterfalls in the night country.

Bryce Courtenay
But I was still alive, and in my book, where there's life, there's hope.

Bryce Courtenay
Sometimes in life doing what we shouldn't do is the emergency

Bryce Courtenay
It's good to be a little frightened. It's good to respect your opponent. It keeps you sharp. In the fight game, the head rules the heart. But in the end the heart is the boss.

Bryce Courtenay
Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it.

Bryce Courtenay
You can't go feeding your hate on the past, it's not natural.

Bryce Courtenay
The man assumes the role of the loner, the thinker and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one was the courage to remain separate, th think through the truth and not be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power, whatever the cost.

Bryce Courtenay
The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, ofen well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete, the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better.

Bryce Courtenay
Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.

Bryce Courtenay
I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.

Bryce Courtenay
What is a german? to say a man is a german, what is that? does it tell you if he is a good man? or a bad man? no, my friend, it tells you nothing about a man to say he is german. a man must think what he is inside. what he is on the outside, how can this matter?

Bryce Courtenay
Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.

Bryce Courtenay