“It was not lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination,” he told the court. “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not till he’s shown his colors, run the people, making laws. Experience, there’s the test.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there was mercy and generosity.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Like all Xhosa children, I acquired knowledge mainly through observation. We were meant to learn through imitation and emulation, not through questions. When I first visited the homes of whites, I was often dumbfounded by the number and nature of questions that children asked of their parents—and their parents’ unfailing willingness to answer them. In my household, questions were considered a nuisance; adults imparted information as they considered necessary.”
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Nelson Mandela
“One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Crime must be brought under control... Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Only free men can negotiate,prisoners can't enter in contracts”
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Nelson Mandela
“Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself.”
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Nelson Mandela
“LIFE IN ALEXANDRA was exhilarating and precarious. Its atmosphere was alive, its spirit adventurous, its people resourceful. Although the township did boast some handsome buildings, it could fairly be described as a slum, living testimony to the neglect of the authorities. The roads were unpaved and dirty, and filled with hungry, undernourished children scampering around half-naked. The air was thick with the smoke from coal fires in tin braziers and stoves. A single water tap served several houses. Pools of stinking, stagnant water full of maggots collected by the side of the road. Alexandra was known as “Dark City” for its complete absence of electricity. Walking home at night was perilous, for there were no lights, the silence pierced by yells, laughter, and occasional gunfire. So different from the darkness of the Transkei, which seemed to envelop one in a welcome embrace.”
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Nelson Mandela
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”
―
Nelson Mandela
