Quotes from 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.

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.

I was visited by my mother in spring 1968. I had not seen her since the end of the Rivonia Trial. Change is gradual and incremental, and when one lives in the midst of one's family, one rarely notices differences in them. But when one doesn't see one's family for many years at a time, the transformation can be striking. My mother suddenly seemed very old.

I was to have a working holiday, the only kind of holiday I knew how to take.

Character is how you treat people when they can do nothing for you.

Prison is a still point in a turning world, and it is very easy to remain in the same place in jail while the world moves on.

Freedom can never be taken for granted. Each generation must safeguard it and extend it. Your parents and elders sacrificed much so that you should have freedom without suffering what they did. Use this precious right to ensure that the darkness of the past never return.

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 – and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.

Každý ?lov?k má v život? dvojí závazek - v??i rodin?, rodi??m, žen? a d?tem, ale také v??i národu, komunit?, zemi.

The government had always utilized divide-and-rule tactics when dealing with Africans and depended on the strength of ethnic divisions among the people. But in places like Alexandra, these differences were being erased.

This created a sense of solidarity, which caused great concern among the white authorities. The government had always utilized divide-and-rule tactics when dealing with Africans and depended on the strength of ethnic divisions among the people. But in places like Alexandra, these differences were being erased.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Suddenly there were no Xhosas or Zulus, no Indians or Africans, no rightists or leftists, no religious or political leaders; we were all nationalists and patriots bound together by a love of our common history our culture, our country, and our people.

In that moment, something stirred deep inside all of us, something strong and intimate, that bound us to one another. In that moment we felt the hand of the great past that made us what we were and the power of the great cause that linked us all together.

Honour belongs to those who never forsake the truth even when things seem dark and grim, who try over and over again, who are never discouraged by insults, humiliation and even defeat.

He hated white oppression and white domination, not white people themselves.

There is little favorable to be said about poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship. Many people will appear to befriend you when you are wealthy, but precious few will do the same when you are poor. If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent. Yet, poverty often brings out the true generosity in others.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear myself more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

In the Afrikaner's worldview, apartheid and the church went hand in hand.

Sólo la educación de las masas, puede liberar al pueblo. Un hombre educado no puede ser oprimido, si es capaz de pensar por sí mismo.

Es fácil que la gente se comporte como amiga cuando uno es rico, pero muy pocos harán lo mismo cuando uno es pobre. Si la riqueza es un imán, la pobreza es una especie de repelente.

It was as simple and yet as incomprehensible as the moment a small child asks her father, "Why can't you be with us?" And the father must utter the terrible words, "There are other children like you, a great many of them...." and then one's voice trails off.

and when we did come out [of prison], my children said, "We thought we had a father and one day he'd come back. But to our dismay, our father came back and he left us alone because he has now become the father of the nation.

It was not a lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.