“Tell me the truth. When you were leaving prison after twenty-seven years and walking down that road to freedom, didn’t you hate them all over again?” And he said, “Absolutely I did, because they’d imprisoned me for so long. I was abused. I didn’t get to see my children grow up. I lost my marriage and the best years of my life. I was angry. And I was afraid, because I had not been free in so long. But as I got closer to the car that would take me away, I realized that when I went through that gate, if I still hated them, they would still have me. I wanted to be free. And so I let it go.”
―
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
“The arbitrary and meaningless tests to decide black from Coloured or Coloured from white often resulted in tragic cases where members of the same family were classified differently, all depending on whether one child had a lighter or darker complexion. Where one was allowed to live and work could rest on such absurd distinctions as the curl of one’s hair or the size of one’s lips.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“ As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“In that moment, something stirred deep inside all of us, something strong and intimate, that bound us to one another. In that moment we felt the hand of the great past that made us what we were and the power of the great cause that linked us all together.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If I had my time over I would do the same again, so would any man who dares call himself a man.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“In my country we go to prison first and then become President. ”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
―
Nelson Mandela
