Quotes About Resilience

There are few misfortunes in this world that you cannot turn into a personal trimuph if you have the iron will and the neccessary skill.

I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." "Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies." "A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Let your courage rise with danger.

When you are young and strong...you can stay alive on your hatred"....but realized later "They can take everything from me except my mind and heart" Nelson Mandela from Long Walk to Freedom

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.

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

Men have different capacities and react differently to stress. But the stronger ones raised up the weaker ones, and both became stronger in the process.

Prison is designed to break one's spirit and destroy one's resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality--all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.

Difficulties break some men but make others

A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded, but by those who are in the arena, whose garments are torn by storms and whose bodies are maimed in the course of the contest. From a letter to Winnie Mandela,

Don't Judge a person by his success stories, but only with how many times the person stood up, after falling down.

Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.

The human body has an enormous capacity for adjusting to trying circumstances. I have found that one can bear the unbearable if one can keep one's spirit strong, even when one's body is being tested. Strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation. Your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the TRIUMPH over it

It is one thing to be told of possible hardships ahead, it is entirely another to have to confront them in reality.

Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.

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

No matter what I suffered in my pursuit of freedom, I always took strength from the fact that I was fighting with and for my own people. Bram was a free man who fought against his own people to ensure the freedom of others

El hombre valiente no es el que no siente miedo, sino el que es capaz de conquistarlo.

Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.

grievance into a succinct and pithy phrase, while mobilizing the people to combat it. Our slogan

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.