“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
“If I had my time over I would do the same again, so would any man who dares call himself a man.”
―
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
“If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.”
―
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
“Only free men can negotiate,prisoners can't enter in contracts”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Banning not only confines one physically, it imprisons one's spirit. it induces a kind of psychological claustrophobia that makes one yearn not only for freedom of movement but spiritual escape...This insidious effect of bans was that at a certain point one began to think that the opponent was not without but within.”
―
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
“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Tread softly,
Brathe peacefully,
Laugh hysterically.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Ich bin ein Optimist. Ob das angeboren oder anerzogen ist, kann ich nicht sagen. Zum optimistisch sein gehört, das Gesicht der Sonne zuzuwenden und immer vorwärts zu gehen. Es gab viele dunkle Stunden, in denen mein Glaube an das Gute auf eine fürchterliche Probe gestellt wurde, aber ich wollte und konnte ihn (mich) nicht aufgeben. Dann hat man verloren. (Und stirbt)”
―
Nelson Mandela
