Nelson Mandela Quotes
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When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.
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The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.
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In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
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I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.
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Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
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We too are also inspired by the life and example of Jose Marti, who is not only a Cuban and Latin American hero but justly honoured by all who struggle to be free.
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Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.
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Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I will sleep for the eternity.
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To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.
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I have never regarded any man as my superior, either in my life outside or inside prison.
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I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.
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Ethiopia has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African. Meeting the emperor himself would be like shaking hands with history.
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I have always believed that exercise is the key not only to physical health but to peace of mind.
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It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.
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Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.
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Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
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Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.
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I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man.
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We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.
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A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.
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The titanic effort that has brought liberation to South Africa, and ensured the total liberation of Africa, constitutes an act of redemption for the black people of the world.
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Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla.
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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.
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I watched, along with all of you, as the tens of thousands of our people stood patiently in long queues for many hours. Some sleeping on the open ground overnight waiting to cast this momentous vote.