“In another conversation I said, “Tell me the truth. When you were leaving prison after twenty-seven years and walking down that road to freedom, didn’t you hate them all over again?” And he said, “Absolutely I did, because they’d imprisoned me for so long. I was abused. I didn’t get to see my children grow up. I lost my marriage and the best years of my life. I was angry. And I was afraid, because I had not been free in so long. But as I got closer to the car that would take me away, I realized that when I went through that gate, if I still hated them, they would still have me. I wanted to be free. And so I let it go.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“grievance into a succinct and pithy phrase, while mobilizing the people to combat it. Our slogan”
―
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.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“It reaffirmed my long-held belief that education was the enemy of prejudice. These were men and women of science, and science had no room for racism.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
―
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
“Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“كيف تريدون ان يبنى مجد البلاد اذا لم يضحي امثالنا بانفسهم”
―
Nelson Mandela
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there was mercy and generosity.”
―
Nelson Mandela
“A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution."
―
Nelson Mandela
“As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”
―
Nelson Mandela
