“I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Freedom can never be taken for granted. Each generation must safeguard it and extend it. Your parents and elders sacrificed much so that you should have freedom without suffering what they did. Use this precious right to ensure that the darkness of the past never return.”
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Nelson Mandela
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded, but by those who are in the arena, whose garments are torn by storms and whose bodies are maimed in the course of the contest. From a letter to Winnie Mandela,”
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Nelson Mandela
“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
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Nelson Mandela
“The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
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Nelson Mandela
“Prison is designed to break one's spirit and destroy one's resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality--all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”
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Nelson Mandela
“Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Having resentment against someone is like drinking poison and thinking it will kill your enemy.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
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Nelson Mandela
“كيف تريدون ان يبنى مجد البلاد اذا لم يضحي امثالنا بانفسهم”
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Nelson Mandela
“I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. From a response to an offer of conditional freedom, read by Zindzi Mandela at a rally, Jabulani Stadium, Soweto, South Africa,”
―
Nelson Mandela