“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
“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I remember Mac retorting that hundreds of years ago there was a Hindi word for a craft that flew in the air, long before the airplane was invented, but that did not mean that airplanes existed in ancient India.”
―
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
“I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“la virtud y la generosidad son recompensadas de un modo inescrutable.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“إن المرء قد يصل في لحظة معينة إلى الإيمان بأن مصدر الظلم لم يعد في الخارج بل في داخله هو نفسه.”
―
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
“Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?”
―
Nelson Mandela
“we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.”
―
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
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great...”
―
Nelson Mandela
“As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Tread softly,
Brathe peacefully,
Laugh hysterically.”
―
Nelson Mandela