“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
“If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.”
―
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
“I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Don't Judge a person by his success stories, but only with how many times the person stood up, after falling down.”
―
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.”
―
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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Prison is a still point in a turning world, and it is very easy to remain in the same place in jail while the world moves on.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.”
―
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
“One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
―
Nelson Mandela
