As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution."
―
Nelson Mandela
“I was a young man who attempted to make up for his ignorance with militancy.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
―
Nelson Mandela
“But I had little knowledge of Marxism, and in political discussions with my communist friends I found myself handicapped by my ignorance of their philosophy. I decided to remedy this.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."
"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?”
―
Nelson Mandela
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
―
Nelson Mandela