“It reaffirmed my long-held belief that education was the enemy of prejudice. These were men and women of science, and science had no room for racism.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that we want.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One subject we hearkened back to again and again was the question of whether there were tigers in Africa.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear myself more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Un luchador por la libertad aprende, por el camino más duro, que es el opresor el que define la naturaleza de la lucha.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I did not have an unlimited library to choose from on Robben Island. We had access to many unremembered mysteries and detective novels and all the works of Daphne du Maurier, but little more.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
―
Nelson Mandela
