Quotes About Struggle

When the women begin to take an active part in the struggle, no power on earth can stop us from achieving freedom in our lifetime.

No era la falta de oportunidades lo que limitaba a mi pueblo, sino la falta de oportunidades.

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

To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspiration

My bans extended to meetings of all kinds, not only political ones. I could not, for example, attend my son's birthday party. I was prohibited from talking to more than one person at a time. This was part of a systematic effort by the government to silence, persecute and immobilize the leaders of those fighting apartheid and was the first of a series of bans on me that continued with brief intervals of freedom until the time I was deprived of all freedom some years later.

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

A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.

The lesson I took away from the campaign was that in the end, we had no alternative to armed and violent resistance. Over and over again, we had used all the nonviolent weapons in our arsenal—speeches, deputations, threats, marches, strikes, stay-aways, voluntary imprisonment—all to no avail,

apartheid turned many otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals.

it is always the oppressor, not the oppressed, who dictates the form of the struggle.

In South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy.

The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. 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. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

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.

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.

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

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.

Let freedom reign.

Un luchador por la libertad aprende, por el camino más duro, que es el opresor el que define la naturaleza de la lucha.

At the university, teachers had shied away from topics like racial oppression,

His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life.

I discovered for the first time people of my own age firmly aligned with the liberation struggle, who were prepared, despite their relative privilege, to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the oppresses.