Bryce Courtenay is an Australian author who wrote the novel ‘The Power of One’.
It was first published in 1989 and follows the story of Peekay, a young South African kid growing up during WWII.
The novel delves into topics such as survival, self-preservation, and racial injustice.
Here are some of the greatest quotes from The Power of One novel.
Table of Contents
The Power of One Quotes by Bryce Courtenay
“Mediocrity is the best camouflage known to man.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“But I was still alive, and in my book, where there’s life, there’s hope.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“The smile, madame, is used by humans to hide the truth, the artist is only interested to reveal the truth.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Always listen to yourself… It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Nothing is unexplained. Nature is a chain reaction. Everything is dependent on something else. The smallest is as important as the largest” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“How 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 (quote from The Power of One).
“You couldn’t lose, you was playing Mozart” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Boldness, at first a stranger to be treated with caution, soon becomes a friend, then a partner, and finally taken for granted, as is the daily relationship between married people.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
Related Books Quotes: The Blade Itself Quotes by Joe Abercrombie and Be Here Now Quotes by Ram Dass
Quotes from The Power of One Quotes
“Then I felt like having a piss and I did that.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“The more you know, the more you can control your destiny.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“First with the head, then with the heart, you’ll be ahead from the start.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“The joy of a small town lies in its unchanging nature.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“First with the head then with the heart.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“every man is an island and at the same time also robinson crusoe.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“I learned that the greatest camouflage of all is consistency. If you do something often enough and at the same time in the same way, you become invisible.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“In teaching me independence of thought, they had given me the greatest gift an adult can give to a child besides love, and they had given me that also.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
Best Power of One Quotes
“In this world there are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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. Hoppie’s dictum to me, “First with the head and then with the heart,” was more than simply mixing brains with guts. It meant thinking well beyond the powers of normal concentration and then daring your courage to follow your thoughts.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Innocents, the meat in a ghastly sandwich between an uncaring society and a vengeful state.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“Racism does not diminish with brains, it’s a disease, a sickness, it may incubate in ignorance but it doesn’t necessarily disappear with the gaining of wisdom!” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“I had never seen a prison, nor had I even imagined one, but there is a racial memory in man that instinctively knows of these things. The architecture of misery has an unmistakable look and feel about it.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
Famous Power of One Quotes
“Winning is a state of mind that embraces everything you do.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Pride is holding your head up high when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“I had learned the most important rule in winning-keep thinking.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Absoloodle not” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“When a man knows somebody cares he keeps some small place, a corner maybe of his soul clean and lit.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“Over all this lay Hoppie’s dictum: First with the head and then with the heart. Winning was something you worked at intellectually, emotion clouds the mind and is its natural enemy. This made for a loneliness which often let me aching to share an emotion but equally afraid that if I did so I would reveal a weakness which could later be used against me.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“All children are flotsam driven by the ebb and flow of adult lives.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“First with the head and then with the heart.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“By bedtime Nanny was at my side as usual, arriving with a large sweet potato, its tummy open with a spoon sticking out of the middle, tiny wisps of steam curling upwards and condensing on the handle. There is something about a sweet potato that cheers you up when you are low and it celebrates with you when you are happy. Sweet potatoes baked in their jackets have a very large comfort factor built into them.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
Powerful Power of One Quotes
“It seemed certain now that small could defeat big. All it took was brains and skills and heart and a perfect plan.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“I wish to cup knowledge in my hand and drink it as one drinks water by the side of the stream.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“I spoke the language that had pronounced the sentences that had killed their grandfathers and sent their grandmothers to the world’s first concentration camps” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“When men can be made to hope, then they can be made to win.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Morrie, as usual, had made his point: good conversational debate is an end to itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human. p385” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“You can’t go feeding your hate on the past, it’s not natural.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“First with the head, then with the heart.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“It’s not what a man does, it’s what a man is that counts!” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
Insightful Power of One 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 (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. There comes a time in everything when you don’t know something.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“And if you should be there and you see this beautiful cactus blossom painted silver by the moon and laughing up at the stars, this, Peekay, is heaven.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“sometimes in life doing what we shouldn’t do is the emergency” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
Greatest The Power of One Quotes
“I felt clean, all the bone-beaked loneliness birds banished, their rocky nests turned to river stones. Cool, clear water bubbled over them, streams in the desert.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Sometimes, very occasionally, you do your best boxing with your mouth.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
“Never take advice from a donkey.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“A man on the run finds compassion or loveor even pretended innocence his greatest source of danger.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“The imagination is always the best torturer.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“sweet potatoes in their jackets have a large comfort value built into them” ― Bryce Courtenay, The Power Of One
“Everything has happened before; if you know what comes before, then you know what happens now.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Racism is a primary force of evil designed to destroy good men.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“Life is all beginnings and ends. Nothing stays the same, lad.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“More fights are lost by underestimating your opponent than by any other way.” ~ Bryce Courtenay (quote from The Power of One).
“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 (quote from The Power of One).
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