“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 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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is music and dancing that make me at peace with the world.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Tread softly,
Brathe peacefully,
Laugh hysterically.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“after years of imprisonment, physical and emotional abuse, and separation from his family, Mandela said, “I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away.” So Mandela’s story is really the story of those two things he never gave away: his brilliant mind, and his great heart.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Tuve ocasión de aprender que el valor no consiste en no tener miedo, sino en ser capaz de vencerlo. He sentido miedo más veces de las que puedo recordar, pero siempre lo he ocultado tras una máscara de audacia. El hombre valiente no es el que no siente miedo, sino el que es capaz de conquistarlo.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Sólo la educación de las masas, puede liberar al pueblo. Un hombre educado no puede ser oprimido, si es capaz de pensar por sí mismo.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“grievance into a succinct and pithy phrase, while mobilizing the people to combat it. Our slogan”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and apsirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry or savour their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people, with different tongues.”
―
Nelson Mandela
