“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 stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It will forever remain an accusation and a challenge to all men and women of conscience that it took as long as it has, before all of us stood up to say enough is enough.”
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Nelson Mandela
“It was not lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
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Nelson Mandela
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.”
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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
“Once a person is determined to help themselves, there is nothing that can stop them.”
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Nelson Mandela
“after years of imprisonment, physical and emotional abuse, and separation from his family, Mandela said, “I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away.” So Mandela’s story is really the story of those two things he never gave away: his brilliant mind, and his great heart.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I remember Mac retorting that hundreds of years ago there was a Hindi word for a craft that flew in the air, long before the airplane was invented, but that did not mean that airplanes existed in ancient India.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
―
Nelson Mandela
