“A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”
―
Nelson Mandela
“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One subject we hearkened back to again and again was the question of whether there were tigers in Africa.”
―
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”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all! I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. Africans of my generation—and even today—generally have both an English and an African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why she bestowed this particular name upon me I have no idea. Perhaps it had something to do with the great British sea captain Lord Nelson, but that would be only a guess.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.”
―
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
“I believed that I would become a counsellor to the Thembu king,”
―
Nelson Mandela
