“Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself.”
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Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.”
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Nelson Mandela
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Africans were desperate for legal help in government buildings: it was a crime to walk through a Whites Only door, a crime to ride a Whites Only bus, a crime to use a Whites Only drinking fountain, a crime to walk on a Whites Only beach, a crime to be on the streets after 11 p.m., a crime not to have a pass book and a crime to have the wrong signature in that book, a crime to be unemployed and a crime to be employed in the wrong place, a crime to live in certain places and a crime to have no place to live.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Although we had no hope of defeating the enemy in the battlefield, nevertheless, we fought back to keep the idea of liberation alive. From a conversation with Richard Stengel, January 13, 1993”
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Nelson Mandela
“Tell me the truth. When you were leaving prison after twenty-seven years and walking down that road to freedom, didn’t you hate them all over again?” And he said, “Absolutely I did, because they’d imprisoned me for so long. I was abused. I didn’t get to see my children grow up. I lost my marriage and the best years of my life. I was angry. And I was afraid, because I had not been free in so long. But as I got closer to the car that would take me away, I realized that when I went through that gate, if I still hated them, they would still have me. I wanted to be free. And so I let it go.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Non-violence is a good policy when conditions permit.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.”
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Nelson Mandela
“There are few misfortunes in this world that you cannot turn into a personal trimuph if you have the iron will and the neccessary skill.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I shall stick to our vow: never, never under any circumstances, to say anything unbecoming of the other...The trouble, of course, is that most successful men are prone to some form of vanity. There comes a stage in their lives when they consider it permissible to be egotistic and to brag to the public at large about their unique achievements.”
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Nelson Mandela
“To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy.”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“ As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Democracy meant all men were to be heard, and a decision was taken together as a people. Majority rule was a foreign notion. A minority was not to be crushed by a majority.”
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Nelson Mandela
