Nelson Mendela All Quotes and Sayings

Born: in Mvezo, South Africa, July 18, 1918
Died: December 05, 2013
Website: http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php
Genre: Politics, Social Sciences, Nonfiction

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a previous President of South Africa, the first to be chosen in a completely delegate vote based political decision, who held office from 1994–99.
Prior to his administration, Mandela was an enemy of politically-sanctioned racial segregation dissident, and the head of the African National Congress’ outfitted wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. The South African courts sentenced him on charges of treachery, just as different violations submitted while he drove the development against politically-sanctioned racial segregation. As per his conviction, Mandela served 27 years in jail, going through a significant number of these years on Robben Island.
In South Africa he is frequently known as Madiba, a privileged title embraced by elderly folks of Mandela’s group. The title has come to be inseparable from Nelson Mandela.
Following his delivery from jail on 11 February 1990, Mandela upheld compromise and arrangement, and aided lead the progress towards multi-racial vote based system in South Africa. Since the finish of politically-sanctioned racial segregation, many have much of the time adulated Mandela, including previous rivals. Mandela has gotten more than 100 honors more than forty years, most strikingly the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

“Nelson Mendela All Quotes and Sayings”

1. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
2. “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
3. “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.”
4. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
5. “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
6. “Appearances matter — and remember to smile.”
7. “One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
8. “A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones”
9. “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up”
10. “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
11. “I am the captain of my soul.”
12. “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.”
13. “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
14. “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
15. “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
16. “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.”
17. “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.”
18. “Courage is not the absence of fear — it’s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
19. “You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
20. “Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.”
21. “One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.”
22. “Nothing is black or white.”
23. “In my country we go to prison first and then become President.”
24. “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.”
25. “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
26. “Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport.”
27. “It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.”
28. “I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.”
29. “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation”
30. “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.”
31. “Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.”
32. “You’re playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great”
33. “Quitting is leading too.”
34. “I AM THE MASTER OF MY FATE AND THE CAPTAIN OF MY DESTINY.”
35. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite… Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
36. “It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
37. “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.”
38. “We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
39. “The brave man is not the one who has no fears, he is the one who triumphs over his fears.”
40. “When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.”
41. “I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.”
42. “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”
43. “We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear.”
44. “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)”
45. “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.”
46. “Once a person is determined to help themselves, there is nothing that can stop them.”
47. “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
48. “You’re playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”
49. “Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.”
50. “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
51. “It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world.”
52. “I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.”
53. “A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire”
54. “Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.”
55. “No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”
56. “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.”
57. “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”
58. “I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his kin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite.”
59. “Only free men can negotiate, prisoners can’t enter in contracts”
60. “There are few misfortunes in this world that you cannot turn into a personal triumph if you have the iron will and the necessary skill.”
61.  “Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”
62. “In another conversation I said, ‘Tell me the truth. When you were leaving prison after twenty-seven years and walking down that road to freedom, didn’t you hate them all over again’ And he said,
63. ‘Absolutely I did, because they’d imprisoned me for so long. I was abused. I didn’t get to see my children grow up. I lost my marriage and the best years of my life. I was angry. And I was afraid, because I had not been free in so long. But as I got closer to the car that would take me away, I realized that when I went through that gate, if I still hated them, they would still have me. I wanted to be free. And so I let it go.”
64. “Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will”
65. “For a revolution is not just a question of pulling a trigger; its purpose is to create a fair just society”
66. “Resentment is a method of self-harm”
67. “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
68. “We forgive but not forgotten”
69. “As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”
70. “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
71. “It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their heart is touched, they are capable of changing.”
72. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”
73. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
74. “Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.”
75. “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.”
76. “Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.”
77. “Having resentment against someone is like drinking poison and thinking it will kill your enemy.”
78. “It is most unusual to return to a place that has changed in ways you yourself have altered.”
79. “Life has a way of forcing decisions on those who vacillate.”
80. “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
81. “There is no such thing as part freedom”
82. “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.”
83. “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
84. “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
85. “No one i born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
86. “Losing a sense of time is an easy way to lose one’s grip and even one’s sanity.”
87. “Fools multiply when wise men are silent.”
88. “Democracy meant all men were to be heard, and a decision was taken together as a people. Majority rule was a foreign notion. A minority was not to be crushed by a majority.”
89. “ 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 heart”
90. “There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.”
91. “Let your courage rise with danger.”
92. “Although Verwoerd thought Africans were lower than animals, his death did not yield us any pleasure. Political assassination is not something I or the ANC ever supported. It is a primitive way of contending with an opponent”
93. “I never lose, I either win or learn”
94. “Some mornings I walked out into the courtyard and every living thing there, the seagulls and wagtails, the small trees, and even the stray blades of grass seemed to smile and shine in the sun. It was at such times, when I perceived the beauty of even this small, closed-in corner of the world, that I knew that someday my people and I would be free.”
95. “It was ANC policy to try to educate all people, even our enemies: we believed that all men, even prison service Warders were capable of change, and we did our utmost to try to sway them.”
96. “Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics.”
97. “if you talk to a man in a second language , you’re talking to his brain ,if you talk to him in his mother language you’re talking to his heart -”
98. “To make peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one’s partner.”
99. “I did not have an unlimited library to choose from on Robben Island. We had access to many unremembered mysteries and detective novels and all the works of Daphne du Maurier, but little more.”
100. “I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.”
101. “A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution.”
102. “We fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.”
103. “She married a man who soon left her; that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all.”
104. “I do not deny, however, that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the Whites.”
105. “It will forever remain an
106. accusation and a challenge to all men and women of conscience that it took as long as it has, before all of us stood up to say enough is enough.”
107. “I was a young man who attempted to make up for his ignorance with militancy.”
108. “Nonviolent passive resistance is effective as long as your opposition adheres to the same rules as you do. But if peaceful protest is met with violence, its efficacy is at an end. For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.”
109. “Men have different capacities and react differently to stress. But the stronger ones rose up the weaker ones, and both became stronger in the process.”
110. “Don’t Judge a person by his success stories, but only with how many times the person stood up, after falling down.”
111. “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.”
112. “I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there was mercy and generosity.”
113. “To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy.”
114. “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.”
115. “I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”
116. “Later the island was turned into a leper colony, a lunatic asylum, and a naval base. The government had only recently turned the island back into a prison.”
117. “The oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.”
118. “I remember Mac retorting that hundreds of years ago there was a Hindi word for a craft that flew in the air, long before the airplane was invented, but that did not mean that airplanes existed in ancient India.”
119. “Overcoming fear, personal scarifies for the cause of freedom of all, and ability to see good in your enemies – No one is born hating another person because of the color of your skin, or his background, or his religion … if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
120. “Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
121. “We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all.”
122. “But I had little knowledge of Marxism, and in political discussions with my communist friends I found myself handicapped by my ignorance of their philosophy. I decided to remedy this.”
123. “A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.”
124. “The grave plight of the people compels them to resist to the death the stinking policies of the gangsters that rule our country….”
125. “To be free is to not merely cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
126. “Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front.”
127. “We do not want freedom without bread, nor do we want bread without freedom. Investiture, Clark University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, July 10, 1993”
128. “It was not lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.”
129. “Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.”
130. “The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979”
131. “Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.”
132. “Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all! I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.”
133. “Crime must be brought under control… Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.”
134. “A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded, but by those who are in the arena, whose garments are torn by storms and whose bodies are maimed in the course of the contest. From a letter to Winnie Mandela,”
135. “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
136. If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart.”
137. “Africans were desperate for legal help in government buildings: it
138. was a crime to walk through a Whites Only door, a crime to ride a Whites Only bus, a crime to use a Whites Only drinking fountain, a crime to walk on a Whites Only beach, a crime to be on the streets after 11 p.m., a crime not to have a pass book and a crime to have the wrong signature in that book, a crime to be unemployed and a crime to be employed in the wrong place, a crime to live in certain places and a crime to have no place to live.”
139. “I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, 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.   It”
140. “our father came back and he left us alone because he has now become the father of the nation.”
141. “It is one thing to be told of possible hardships ahead, it is entirely another to have to confront them in reality.”
142. “No one is born hating another person. If they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
143. “Although we had no hope of defeating the enemy in the battlefield, nevertheless, we fought back to keep the idea of liberation alive. From a conversation with Richard Stengel, January 13, 1993”
144. “One subject we hearkened back to again and again was the question of whether there were tigers in Africa.”
145. “I loved it in the unconditional way that children love their first home.”
146. “It’s never too late to do the right thing.”
147. “I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many have died since I went to prison. Too many have suffered for the love of freedom.”
148. “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.”
149. “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”
150. “A slogan is a vital link between the organization and the masses it seeks to lead. It should synthesize a particular grievance into a succinct and pithy phrase, while mobilizing the people to combat it.”
151. “I immediately regretted that last point because I have discovered that in discussions it never helps to take a morally superior tone to one’s opponent.”
152. “To deny people of their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.”
153. “As Chief Luthuli said, ‘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.”
154. “A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded…”
155. “Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.”
156. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”
157. “Men, I think, are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good of society and the good life in the ways they see it.”
158. “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred,”
159. “Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself.”
160. “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”
161. “One of the mistakes which some political analysts make is to think that their enemies should be our enemies.”
162. “There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they are known to those who win them.”
163. “Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did. Even as a student, I saw many young men who had great natural ability, but who did not have the self-discipline and patience to build on their endowment.”
164. “A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.”
165. “I believed that I would become a counselor to the Thimbu king,”
166. “Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he’s shown his colors, run the people, making laws. Experience, there’s the test.”
167. “I was the symbol of justice in the court of the oppressor, the representative of the great ideals of freedom,”
168. “To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspiration”
169. “Great thinking comes from a great mind”
170. “But in Johannesburg I found that many of the most outstanding leaders had never been to university at all.”
171. “To truly lead one’s people one must also truly know them.”
172. “There is no such thing as part freedom.”
173.  “Be absolute for death; for either death or life shall be the sweeter.”
174. “Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.”
175. “In a sick country every step to health is an insult to those who live on its sickness.”
176. “It was not a lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.”
177. “It never hurts to see the good in someone; they often act the better because of it.”
178. “A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones – and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.”
179. “Let freedom reign.”
180. “I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.”
181. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.” – Nelson Mandela”
182. “Truth will rise like the sun from the morning clouds!”
183. “Made a point of sitting in a Whites Only chair in the Whites Only waiting room.”
184. “Learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
185. “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
186. “Although it was not published while I was in prison, it forms the spine of this memoir.”
187. “They reminded us that the freedom struggle was not merely a question of making speeches, holding meetings, passing resolutions, and sending deputations, but of meticulous organization, militant action, and, above all, the willingness to suffer and sacrifice.”
188. “I have retired, but if there is anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do.”
189. “Stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.”
190. “What freedom am I being offered when my very South African citizenship is not respected”
191. “When describing why the African National Congress took the fateful decision to give up on nonviolence and take up arms, Mandela writes that they had no choice, that “the oppressor defines the nature of the struggle.”
192. “It was one of the first times that I saw that it was foolhardy to go against the masses of people. It is no use to take an action to which the masses are opposed, for it will then be impossible to enforce.”

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