“Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”
―
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
“I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment of one's birth, whether one acknowledges it or not...His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life...I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded, but by those who are in the arena, whose garments are torn by storms and whose bodies are maimed in the course of the contest. From a letter to Winnie Mandela,”
―
Nelson Mandela
“He nodded for us to rise. I tried to catch his eye, but he was not even looking in our direction. His eyes were focused on the middle distance. His face was very pale, and he was breathing heavily. We looked at each other and seemed to know: it would be death, otherwise why was this normally calm man so nervous? And then he began to speak.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Non-violence is a good policy when conditions permit.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Don't Judge a person by his success stories, but only with how many times the person stood up, after falling down.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?”
―
Nelson Mandela
“all remained loyal to him, not because they always agreed with him, but because the regent listened to and respected different opinions.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Men have different capacities and react differently to stress. But the stronger ones raised up the weaker ones, and both became stronger in the process.”
―
Nelson Mandela
