Quotes from Nelson Mandela

Democracy meant all men were to be heard, and a decision was taken together as a people. Majority rule was a foreign notion. A minority was not to be crushed by a majority.

Although Verwoerd thought Africans were lower than animals, his death did not yield us any pleasure. Political assassination is not something I or the ANC ever supported. It is a primitive way of contending with an opponent

Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics.

Some mornings I walked out into the courtyard and every living thing there, the seagulls and wagtails, the small trees, and even the stray blades of grass seemed to smile and shine in the sun. It was at such times, when I perceived the beauty of even this small, closed-in corner of the world, that I knew that some day my people and I would be free.

It was ANC policy to try to educate all people, even our enemies: we believed that all men, even prison service warders, were capable of change, and we did our utmost to try to sway them.

What freedom am I being offered while the organization of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts,

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and apsirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry or savour their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people, with different tongues.

To make peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one's partner.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution." [ Political Report of the National Executive Committee to the forty-ninth A.N.C. National Conference , Bloemfontein, South Africa, 17 December 1994]

Tread softly, Breathe peacefully, Laugh hysterically." ? Nelson Mandela

Non-violence is a good policy when conditions permit.

Violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid.

we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.

She married a man who soon left her; that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all.

I did not have an unlimited library to choose from on Robben Island. We had access to many unremembered mysteries and detective novels and all the works of Daphne du Maurier, but little more.

I do not deny, however, that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the Whites.

I was a young man who attempted to make up for his ignorance with militancy.

all remained loyal to him, not because they always agreed with him, but because the regent listened to and respected different opinions.

If I had my time over I would do the same again, so would any man who dares call himself a man.

a child is born free

It will forever remain an accusation and a challenge to all men and women of conscience that it took as long as it has, before all of us stood up to say enough is enough.

n Mens het letterkunde in jou lewe nodig, want daarsonder gaan jy agteruit.

I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur (...) I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there was mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. page 749