“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination,” he told the court. “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
―
Nelson Mandela
Každý člověk má v životě dvojí závazek - vůči rodině, rodičům, ženě a dětem, ale také vůči národu, komunitě, zemi.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“She married a man who soon left her; that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I remember Mac retorting that hundreds of years ago there was a Hindi word for a craft that flew in the air, long before the airplane was invented, but that did not mean that airplanes existed in ancient India.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
―
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.”
―
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,”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and apsirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry or savour their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people, with different tongues.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that we want.”
―
Nelson Mandela
