“Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One subject we hearkened back to again and again was the question of whether there were tigers in Africa.”
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Nelson Mandela
“This document [the Reconstruction and Development Programme] was translated into a simpler manifesto called 'A Better Life for All', which in turn became the ANC's campaign slogan.”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Ik heb altijd gevonden dat lichaamsbeweging niet alleen de sleutel is tot fysieke gezondheid, maar ook tot gemoedsrust. [...] Lichaamsbeweging verdrijft spanning en spanning is de vijand van sereniteit.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.”
―
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
“As Chief Luthuli said, 'When the women begin to take an active part in the struggle, no power on earth can stop us from achieving freedom in our lifetime.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”
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Nelson Mandela
“The arbitrary and meaningless tests to decide black from Coloured or Coloured from white often resulted in tragic cases where members of the same family were classified differently, all depending on whether one child had a lighter or darker complexion. Where one was allowed to live and work could rest on such absurd distinctions as the curl of one’s hair or the size of one’s lips.”
―
Nelson Mandela
