“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A friend of mine once saw Mandela in a South African airport and told me this story. The president had noticed a lady who was walking by with her daughter, a beautiful five- or six-year-old girl, with blond hair and blue eyes. Mandela walked up to this little girl and leaned down and shook her hand, and he said, “Do you know who I am?” And the child smiled and said, “Yes, you are President Mandela.” Mandela said, “Yes, I am your president. And if you work very hard in school and you learn a lot and you are nice to everybody, you too could grow up to be President of South Africa.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I wondered--not for the first time--whether one was ever justified in neglecting the welfare of one's own family in order to fight for the welfare of others. Can there be anything more important than looking after one's aging mother? Is politics merely a pretext for shirking one's responsibilities, an excuse for not being able to provide in the way one wanted?”
―
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.”
―
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
“Once a person is determined to help themselves, there is nothing that can stop them.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“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
“I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“There are few misfortunes in this world that you cannot turn into a personal triumph if you have the iron will and the necessary skill.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“life has a way of forcing decisions on those who vacillate.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
―
Nelson Mandela
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
―
Nelson Mandela
