Nelson Mandela Quotes

Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.

Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.

I came across few whites as a boy at Qunu. The local magistrate, of course, was white, as was the ne...

A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolu

We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fe...

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non...

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us it's ...

Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.

I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant a...

I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves ...

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his ...

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British i...

I would wear the blue overalls of the fieldworker and often wore round, rimless glasses known as Maz...

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitte...

On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that...

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate ...

People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violenc...

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppressi...

It is a simple tale, but its message is an enduring one: virtue and generosity will be rewarded in w...

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Af...

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in ha...

Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freed...

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a f...

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixte...

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation

The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhun...

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your pa...

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory w...

Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independ...

Give a child love, laughter and peace, not AIDS.

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not...

Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, b...

There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the...

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Tw...

Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.

If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my ow...

Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to fur...

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your pa...

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought aga...

To deny people of their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

I have retired, but if there's anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowi...

There is little to be said in favour of poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship. M...

Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flo...

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues - of my comrades in the movement - who...

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

Forget the past.

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization -...

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind t...

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my ...

At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion that the struggle in South Africa is under the infl...

If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.

Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chain...

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

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of bei...

It reaffirmed my long-held belief that education was the enemy of prejudice. These were men and wome...

What I took out of them was that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and tha...

A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones

A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, wh...

Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not t...

This document [the Reconstruction and Development Programme] was translated into a simpler manifesto...

Crime must be brought under control... Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live...

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and as...

Prison is designed to break one's spirit and destroy one's resolve. To do this, the authorities atte...

It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that ...

I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the ...

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhanc...

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and ap...

People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes...

One day, I was on the front lawn of the property and aimed the gun at a sparrow perched high in a tr...

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As ...

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

I loved it in the unconditional way that children love their first home.

When you are young and strong...you can stay alive on your hatred"....but realized later "They can ...

In judging our progress as individual we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's socia...

i love playing and chatting with children...feeding and putting them to bed with a little story, and...

There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and ...

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhanc...

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in...

It always seems impossible until it's done.

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the ...

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an ou...

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the othe...

I am confident that nobody... will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still...

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you your...