“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.”
―
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
“It was not lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One subject we hearkened back to again and again was the question of whether there were tigers in Africa.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Tread softly,
Breathe peacefully,
Laugh hysterically.”
― Nelson Mandela”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Although few people will remember 3 June 1993, it was a landmark in South African history. On that day, after months of negotiations at the World Trade Centre, the multiparty forum voted to set a date for the country’s first national, nonracial, one-person-one-vote election: 27 April 1994. For the first time in South African history, the black majority would go to the polls to elect their own leaders.”
―
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
“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“O mais importante da vida é a marca que deixamos na vida dos outros.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”
―
Nelson Mandela
