“Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Es fácil que la gente se comporte como amiga cuando uno es rico, pero muy pocos harán lo mismo cuando uno es pobre. Si la riqueza es un imán, la pobreza es una especie de repelente.”
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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
“all remained loyal to him, not because they always agreed with him, but because the regent listened to and respected different opinions.”
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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
“I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.”
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Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I did not have an unlimited library to choose from on Robben Island. We had access to many unremembered mysteries and detective novels and all the works of Daphne du Maurier, but little more.”
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Nelson Mandela
“On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. Africans of my generation—and even today—generally have both an English and an African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why she bestowed this particular name upon me I have no idea. Perhaps it had something to do with the great British sea captain Lord Nelson, but that would be only a guess.”
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Nelson Mandela
“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.”
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Nelson Mandela
“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”
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Nelson Mandela
