“I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”
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Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his kin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite.”
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Nelson Mandela
“The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
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Nelson Mandela
“Men, I think, are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good of society and the good life in the ways they see it.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Out of the motorcar (I learned later that this majestic vehicle was a Ford V8) stepped a short, thickset man wearing a smart suit.”
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Nelson Mandela
“ When you are young and strong...you can stay alive on your hatred"....but realized later "They can take everything from me except my mind and heart"
―
Nelson Mandela
“A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”
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Nelson Mandela
“He did not need to be ordained, for the traditional religion of the Xhosas is characterized by a cosmic wholeness, so that there is little distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the natural and the supernatural.”
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Nelson Mandela
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires”
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Nelson Mandela
“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
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Nelson Mandela
“overcoming fear, personal scarifies for the cause of freedom of all, and ability to see good in your enemies – No one is born hating another person because of the color of your skin, or his background, or his religion … if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Prison is designed to break one's spirit and destroy one's resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality--all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.”
―
Nelson Mandela
