Nelson Mandela Quotes

“Part of building a new nation means building a spirit of tolerance, love and respect amongst the people of this country.”

“The call now is for each of us to ask ourselves: are we doing all we can to help build the country of our dreams?”

“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

“I learned to have the patience to listen when people put forward their views, even if I think those views are wrong. You can't reach a just decision in a dispute unless you listen to both sides.”

“It is in the character of growth that we should learn from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.”

“Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.”

“Men come and men go, I have come and I will go when my time comes”

“If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.”

“If our expectations, if our fondest prayers and dreams, are not realized then we should all bear in mind that the greatest glory of living lies not in never falling but in rising every time you fall.”

“We don't have to be victims of our past, that we can let go of our bitterness, and that all of us can achieve greatness.”

“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.”

“The people of Africa have learned the lessons of patience and endurance in their long struggle for freedom.In a cynical world we have become an inspiration to many. We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to belief in the goodness of people.”

“Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.”

“It is time for the next generations to continue our struggle against social injustice and for the rights of humanity. It is in your hands.”

“I regard it as a duty which I owed, not just to my people, but also to my profession, to the practice of law, and to the justice for all mankind, to cry out against this discrimination which is essentially unjust and opposed to the whole basis of the attitude towards justice which is part of the tradition of legal training in this country. I believed that in taking up a stand against this injustice I was upholding the dignity of what should be an honorable profession.”

“Freedom would be meaningless without security in the home and in the streets.”

“Take it upon yourself where you live to make people around you joyful and full of hope.”

“Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one's commitment.”

“Even if you have a terminal disease, you don't have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.”

“I dust [your photo] carefully every morning, for to do so gives me the pleasant feeling that I'm caressing you as in the old days. I even touch your nose with mine to recapture the electric current that used to flush through my blood whenever I did so.”

“I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot.”

“To truly lead one's people, one must also truly know them.”

“Success in politics demands that you must take your people into confidence about your views and state them very clearly, very politely, very calmly, but nevertheless, state them openly.”

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

“Through its imperialist system Britain brought about untold suffering of millions of people. And this is an historical fact. To be able to admit this would increase the respect, you know, which we have for British institutions.”