Nelson Mandela Quotes

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.

~ Nelson Mandela

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.

~ Nelson Mandela

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

~ Nelson Mandela

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

~ Nelson Mandela

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.

~ Nelson Mandela

It reaffirmed my long-held belief that education was the enemy of prejudice. These were men and women of science, and science had no room for racism.

~ Nelson Mandela

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.

~ Nelson Mandela

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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.

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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.

~ Nelson Mandela

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances freedom to others. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.

~ Nelson Mandela

Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not till he’s shown his colors, run the people, making laws. Experience, there’s the test.

~ Nelson Mandela

I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment of one's birth, whether one acknowledges it or not...His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life...I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.

~ Nelson Mandela

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. -Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1918)

~ Nelson Mandela

A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

One day, I was on the front lawn of the property and aimed the gun at a sparrow perched high in a tree. Hazel Goldreich, Arthur's wife, was watching me and jokingly remarked that I would never hit the target. But she had hardly finished the sentence when the sparrow fell to the ground. I turned to her and was about to boast, when the Goldreichs' son Paul, then about five years old, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, David, why did you kill that bird? Its mother will be sad. My mood immediately shifted from one of pride to shame; I felt that this small boy had far more humanity than I did. It was an odd sensation for a man who was the leader of a nascent guerrilla army.

~ Nelson Mandela

Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

i love playing and chatting with children...feeding and putting them to bed with a little story, and being away from the family has troubled me throughout my...life. i like relaxing at the house, reading quietly, taking in the sweet smell that comes from the pots, sitting around a table with the family and taking out my wife and children. when you can no longer enjoy these simple pleasures something valuable is taken away from your life and you feel it in your daily work.

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

There is little to be said in favour of 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

~ Nelson Mandela

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent

~ Nelson Mandela

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.

~ Nelson Mandela

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.

~ Nelson Mandela

In judging our progress as individual we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education. These are, of course, important in measuring one's success in material matters and it is perfectly understandable if many people exert themselves mainly to achieve all these. But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualites which are within reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

~ Nelson Mandela

It is a simple tale, but its message is an enduring one: virtue and generosity will be rewarded in ways that one cannot know.

~ Nelson Mandela

What I took out of them was that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and that a hero was a man who would not break even under the most trying circumstances.

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

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

~ Nelson Mandela

There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status.

~ Nelson Mandela

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 heartNelson Mandela from Long Walk to Freedom

~ Nelson Mandela