“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Men have different capacities and react differently to stress. But the stronger ones raised up the weaker ones, and both became stronger in the process.”
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Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Tuve ocasión de aprender que el valor no consiste en no tener miedo, sino en ser capaz de vencerlo. He sentido miedo más veces de las que puedo recordar, pero siempre lo he ocultado tras una máscara de audacia. El hombre valiente no es el que no siente miedo, sino el que es capaz de conquistarlo.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment of one's birth, whether one acknowledges it or not...His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life...I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”
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Nelson Mandela
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over 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
“It is a simple tale, but its message is an enduring one: virtue and generosity will be rewarded in ways that one cannot know.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.”
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Nelson Mandela