“I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics.”
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Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
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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
“The arbitrary and meaningless tests to decide black from Coloured or Coloured from white often resulted in tragic cases where members of the same family were classified differently, all depending on whether one child had a lighter or darker complexion. Where one was allowed to live and work could rest on such absurd distinctions as the curl of one’s hair or the size of one’s lips.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Don't Judge a person by his success stories, but only with how many times the person stood up, after falling down.”
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Nelson Mandela
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. -Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1918)”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“O mais importante da vida é a marca que deixamos na vida dos outros.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.”
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Nelson Mandela
“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
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Nelson Mandela
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires”
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Nelson Mandela
“One day, George Mbekela paid a visit to my mother. “Your son is a clever young fellow,” he said. “He should go to school.” My mother remained silent. No one in my family had ever attended school and my mother was unprepared for Mbekela’s suggestion. But she did relay it to my father, who despite—or perhaps because of—his own lack of education immediately decided that his youngest son should go to school.
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Nelson Mandela