“Suddenly there were no Xhosas or Zulus, no Indians or Africans, no rightists or leftists, no religious or political leaders; we were all nationalists and patriots bound together by a love of our common history our culture, our country, and our people.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.”
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Nelson Mandela
“To make peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one’s partner.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“the wealthiest and most popular boy at the circumcision school.”
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Nelson Mandela
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
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Nelson Mandela
“If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues.”
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Nelson Mandela
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”
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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
“It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. -Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1918)”
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Nelson Mandela
“before either of us knew it, we were in the same room and in each other’s arms. I kissed and held my wife for the first time in all these many years. It was a moment I had dreamed about a thousand times. It was as if I were still dreaming. I held her to me for what seemed like an eternity. We were still and silent except for the sound of our hearts. I did not want to let go of her at all, but I broke free and embraced my daughter and then took her child into my lap. It had been twenty-one years since I had even touched my wife’s hand.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?”
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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
“It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that we want.”
―
Nelson Mandela
