“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.”
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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
“It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
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Nelson Mandela
“la virtud y la generosidad son recompensadas de un modo inescrutable.”
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Nelson Mandela
“On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. Africans of my generation—and even today—generally have both an English and an African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why she bestowed this particular name upon me I have no idea. Perhaps it had something to do with the great British sea captain Lord Nelson, but that would be only a guess.”
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Nelson Mandela
“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
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Nelson Mandela
“If I had my time over I would do the same again, so would any man who dares call himself a man.”
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Nelson Mandela
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“En las competiciones campo a través, el entrenamiento es más importante que cualquier talento innato, y eso me permitía compensar mi falta de aptitudes naturales por medio de la disciplina y la diligencia. Aplicaba este principio a todo lo que hacía. Siendo estudiante, conocí a muchos jóvenes que tenían un gran talento natural, pero carecían de la disciplina y la paciencia necesarias para sacarle partido.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
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Nelson Mandela
“To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A friend of mine once saw Mandela in a South African airport and told me this story. The president had noticed a lady who was walking by with her daughter, a beautiful five- or six-year-old girl, with blond hair and blue eyes. Mandela walked up to this little girl and leaned down and shook her hand, and he said, “Do you know who I am?” And the child smiled and said, “Yes, you are President Mandela.” Mandela said, “Yes, I am your president. And if you work very hard in school and you learn a lot and you are nice to everybody, you too could grow up to be President of South Africa.”
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Nelson Mandela
“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
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Nelson Mandela
