“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
“Non-violence is a good policy when conditions permit.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Un luchador por la libertad aprende, por el camino más duro, que es el opresor el que define la naturaleza de la lucha.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Banning not only confines one physically, it imprisons one's spirit. it induces a kind of psychological claustrophobia that makes one yearn not only for freedom of movement but spiritual escape...This insidious effect of bans was that at a certain point one began to think that the opponent was not without but within.”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Be absolute for death; for either death or life shall be the sweeter.”
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Nelson Mandela
“He nodded for us to rise. I tried to catch his eye, but he was not even looking in our direction. His eyes were focused on the middle distance. His face was very pale, and he was breathing heavily. We looked at each other and seemed to know: it would be death, otherwise why was this normally calm man so nervous? And then he began to speak.”
―
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.
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Nelson Mandela
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many have died since I went to prison. Too many have suffered for the love of freedom.”
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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
“لقد هددنا بالانسحاب من السلطة لنسلبهم هيبتهم وصلاحياتهم، ورغم الوساطات التي تدخلت لأجل الحل لم نتراجع، وانتصرنا نتيجة ثباتنا على موقفنا، وكانت تلك من أوائل مواجهاتنا مع السلطة واستشعرت لذة النصر التي يولدها شعور المرء أنه على حق وأن العدالة إلى جانبه”
―
Nelson Mandela
“As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”
―
Nelson Mandela
