“I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“la virtud y la generosidad son recompensadas de un modo inescrutable.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great...”
―
Nelson Mandela
“No era la falta de oportunidades lo que limitaba a mi pueblo, sino la falta de oportunidades.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
―
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
“Niente come tornare in un luogo rimasto immutato
ci fa scoprire quanto siamo cambiati...”
―
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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If I had my time over I would do the same again, so would any man who dares call himself a man.”
―
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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
