“the wealthiest and most popular boy at the circumcision school.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”
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Nelson Mandela
“ When you are young and strong...you can stay alive on your hatred"....but realized later "They can take everything from me except my mind and heart"
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Nelson Mandela
“we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.”
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Nelson Mandela
“- In my country we go to prison first and then become President.”
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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
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
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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
“Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
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Nelson Mandela
“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
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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
“I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.”
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Nelson Mandela
