“I am what I am.........both as a result of people who respected me and helped me, and of those who did not respect me and treated me badly.
Nelson Mandela”
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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
“Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.”
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Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I believed that I would become a counsellor to the Thembu king,”
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Nelson Mandela
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his kin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite.”
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Nelson Mandela
“If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.”
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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.”
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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 never lost hope that this great transformation would occur (...) I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there was mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
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Nelson Mandela
“Een leider, zegt hij, is als een herder. Hij blijft achter de kudde en laat de behendigste voorlopen, waarop de anderen volgen, zonder te beseffen dat ze steeds vanuit de achterhoede worden geleid.”
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Nelson Mandela
“LIFE IN ALEXANDRA was exhilarating and precarious. Its atmosphere was alive, its spirit adventurous, its people resourceful. Although the township did boast some handsome buildings, it could fairly be described as a slum, living testimony to the neglect of the authorities. The roads were unpaved and dirty, and filled with hungry, undernourished children scampering around half-naked. The air was thick with the smoke from coal fires in tin braziers and stoves. A single water tap served several houses. Pools of stinking, stagnant water full of maggots collected by the side of the road. Alexandra was known as “Dark City” for its complete absence of electricity. Walking home at night was perilous, for there were no lights, the silence pierced by yells, laughter, and occasional gunfire. So different from the darkness of the Transkei, which seemed to envelop one in a welcome embrace.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.”
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Nelson Mandela
