"I found solitary confinement the most forbidding..." - Quote by Nelson Mandela
I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything.
More by Nelson Mandela
“Nothing is black or white.”
“Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it's very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country.”
“He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.”
More on Prison
“Prison is a Socialist paradise where equality prevails, everything is supplied, and competition is eliminated.”
“I have never regarded any man as my superior, either in my life outside or inside prison.”
“In many respects, people on the outside suffered more than those of us in jail. In prison, we ate three times a day, we had clothing, we had free medical services, and we could sleep for 12 hours.”
More on Solitude
“If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.”
“And I leave my post of observation and find I have had enough of this outside life; I feel that there is nothing more that I can learn here, either now or at any time. And I long to say a last goodbye to everything up here, to go down into my burrow never to return again, let things take their course, and not try to retard them with my profitless vigils.”
“But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things.”