“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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One subject we hearkened back to again and again was the question of whether there were tigers in Africa.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
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Nelson Mandela
“She married a man who soon left her; that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I did not have an unlimited library to choose from on Robben Island. We had access to many unremembered mysteries and detective novels and all the works of Daphne du Maurier, but little more.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It is a simple tale, but its message is an enduring one: virtue and generosity will be rewarded in ways that one cannot know.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
