“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
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“To be free is to not merely cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“كيف يمكن لفتى من الريف ان يتفوق علينا نحن المتقدمين وهو لايتقن حتى الحديث بالانجليزية”
―
Nelson Mandela
“One day, I was on the front lawn of the property and aimed the gun at a sparrow perched high in a tree. Hazel Goldreich, Arthur's wife, was watching me and jokingly remarked that I would never hit the target. But she had hardly finished the sentence when the sparrow fell to the ground. I turned to her and was about to boast, when the Goldreichs' son Paul, then about five years old, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "David, why did you kill that bird? Its mother will be sad." My mood immediately shifted from one of pride to shame; I felt that this small boy had far more humanity than I did. It was an odd sensation for a man who was the leader of a nascent guerrilla army.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Losing a sense of time is an easy way to lose one’s grip and even one’s sanity.”
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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
“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
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
―
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
“Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.”
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Nelson Mandela
“we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.”
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Nelson Mandela
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Non-violence is a good policy when conditions permit.”
―
Nelson Mandela