Nelson Mandela Quotes
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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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I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.
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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.
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Give a child love, laughter and peace, not AIDS.
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If you are poor, you are not likely to live long.
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Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.
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The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.
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I am confident that nobody... will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still in good health, with my family, my friends and also with myself.
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A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
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Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.
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Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.
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At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.
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There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.
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The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity.
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I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.
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My son has died of AIDS.
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I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world.
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Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.
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It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.
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There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.
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The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.
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Forget the past.
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I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.
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We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people.