“The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
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Nelson Mandela
“Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.”
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Nelson Mandela
“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
“It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that we want.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
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Nelson Mandela
“If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.”
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Nelson Mandela
“He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.”
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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
“Like all Xhosa children, I acquired knowledge mainly through observation. We were meant to learn through imitation and emulation, not through questions. When I first visited the homes of whites, I was often dumbfounded by the number and nature of questions that children asked of their parents—and their parents’ unfailing willingness to answer them. In my household, questions were considered a nuisance; adults imparted information as they considered necessary.”
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Nelson Mandela
“He did not need to be ordained, for the traditional religion of the Xhosas is characterized by a cosmic wholeness, so that there is little distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the natural and the supernatural.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.”
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Nelson Mandela
“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution."
―
Nelson Mandela
