“In my country we go to prison first and then become President. ”
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Nelson Mandela
“after years of imprisonment, physical and emotional abuse, and separation from his family, Mandela said, “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.” So Mandela’s story is really the story of those two things he never gave away: his brilliant mind, and his great heart.”
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Nelson Mandela
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
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Nelson Mandela
“The brave man is not the one who has no fears, he is the one who triumphs over his fears.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I believed that I would become a counsellor to the Thembu king,”
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Nelson Mandela
“I am what I am.........both as a result of people who respected me and helped me, and of those who did not respect me and treated me badly.
Nelson Mandela”
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Nelson Mandela
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
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Nelson Mandela
“To be free is to not merely cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Africans were desperate for legal help in government buildings: it was a crime to walk through a Whites Only door, a crime to ride a Whites Only bus, a crime to use a Whites Only drinking fountain, a crime to walk on a Whites Only beach, a crime to be on the streets after 11 p.m., a crime not to have a pass book and a crime to have the wrong signature in that book, a crime to be unemployed and a crime to be employed in the wrong place, a crime to live in certain places and a crime to have no place to live.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation”
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Nelson Mandela
“What freedom am I being offered while the organization of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts,”
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Nelson Mandela
“Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.”
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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
“One day, George Mbekela paid a visit to my mother. “Your son is a clever young fellow,” he said. “He should go to school.” My mother remained silent. No one in my family had ever attended school and my mother was unprepared for Mbekela’s suggestion. But she did relay it to my father, who despite—or perhaps because of—his own lack of education immediately decided that his youngest son should go to school.
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Nelson Mandela
“A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution."
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Nelson Mandela