“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”
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Nelson Mandela
“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
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Nelson Mandela
“Although we had no hope of defeating the enemy in the battlefield, nevertheless, we fought back to keep the idea of liberation alive. From a conversation with Richard Stengel, January 13, 1993”
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Nelson Mandela
“un líder es como un pastor que permanece detrás del rebaño y permite que los más ágiles vayan por delante, tras lo cual, los demás les siguen sin darse cuenta de que en todo momento están siendo dirigidos desde detrás.”
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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
“The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
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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.”
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Nelson Mandela
“For a revolution is not just a question of pulling a trigger; its purpose is to create a fair just society”
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Nelson Mandela
“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
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Nelson Mandela
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
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Nelson Mandela
“كيف تريدون ان يبنى مجد البلاد اذا لم يضحي امثالنا بانفسهم”
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Nelson Mandela
“Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.”
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Nelson Mandela
“I shall stick to our vow: never, never under any circumstances, to say anything unbecoming of the other...The trouble, of course, is that most successful men are prone to some form of vanity. There comes a stage in their lives when they consider it permissible to be egotistic and to brag to the public at large about their unique achievements.”
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Nelson Mandela
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion … if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
―
Nelson Mandela
