South african author Quotes

“I've never had a single moment of depression, because I know my cause will triumph.”

“We must work together to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth, opportunity and power in our society.”

“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.”

“I like a leader who can, while pointing out a mistake, bring up the good things the other person has done. If you do that, then the person sees that you have a complete picture of him. There is nobody more dangerous than one who has been humiliated, even when you humiliate him rightly.”

“We can build a society grounded on friendship and our common humanity - a society founded on tolerance. That is the only road open to us.”

“Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?”

“It is also the fate of leadership to be misunderstood. It is a grave error for any leader to be oversensitive in the face of criticism, to conduct discussions as if he or she is a schoolmaster talking to less informed and inexperienced learners.”

“Continuously, we have to fight to defeat the primitive tendency towards the glorification of arms, the adulation of force, born of the illusion that injustice can be perpetuated by the capacity to kill, or that disputes are necessarily best resolved by resort to violent means.”

“Exercise is the key not only to physical health but to peace of mind.”

“The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow.”

“What has sustained me even in the most grim moments is the knowledge that I am a member of a tried and tested family which has triumphed over many difficulties.”

“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.”

“Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.”

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

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

“On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education.”

“I am sure that if somebody is giving a sum to charity, he or she should be encouraged to do so by the authorities because the spirit in which we encourage people to give has permeated our society.”

“Jinnah is a constant source of inspiration for all those who are fighting against racial and group discrimination.”

“Now we are in the second term of the government of a united nation and the government has done very well. One thing they have done, one thing people could not be blind to, was the achievement this government has made in giving human beings dignity, which they did not enjoy before. They now have dignity.”

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

“There was much in such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of revolutionary democracy in which none will be held in slavery.”

“Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.”

“I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I, and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.”

“The challenge for each one of you is to take up these ideals of tolerance and respect for others and put them to practical use in your schools, your communities and throughout your lives.”

“But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights.”