“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
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
―
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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A friend of mine once saw Mandela in a South African airport and told me this story. The president had noticed a lady who was walking by with her daughter, a beautiful five- or six-year-old girl, with blond hair and blue eyes. Mandela walked up to this little girl and leaned down and shook her hand, and he said, “Do you know who I am?” And the child smiled and said, “Yes, you are President Mandela.” Mandela said, “Yes, I am your president. And if you work very hard in school and you learn a lot and you are nice to everybody, you too could grow up to be President of South Africa.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Be absolute for death; for either death or life shall be the sweeter.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great...”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“los padres raramente conocen el lado romántico de la vida de sus hijos.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“He did not need to be ordained, for the traditional religion of the Xhosas is characterized by a cosmic wholeness, so that there is little distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the natural and the supernatural.”
―
Nelson Mandela