“Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Prison is a still point in a turning world, and it is very easy to remain in the same place in jail while the world moves on.”
―
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”
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Nelson Mandela
“Banning not only confines one physically, it imprisons one's spirit. it induces a kind of psychological claustrophobia that makes one yearn not only for freedom of movement but spiritual escape...This insidious effect of bans was that at a certain point one began to think that the opponent was not without but within.”
―
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
“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their heart is touched, they are capable of changing.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“He did not need to be ordained, for the traditional religion of the Xhosas is characterized by a cosmic wholeness, so that there is little distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the natural and the supernatural.”
―
Nelson Mandela
