“Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.”
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Nelson Mandela
“In another conversation I said, ‘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
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”
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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.
―
Nelson Mandela
“To make peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one’s partner.”
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Nelson Mandela
“It is most unusual to return to a place that has changed in ways you yourself have altered.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”
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Nelson Mandela
“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I discovered for the first time people of my own age firmly aligned with the liberation struggle, who were prepared, despite their relative privilege, to sacrifice themselves of the cause of the oppressed.”
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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
“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
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Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
―
Nelson Mandela
