Nelson Mandela Quotes

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

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.

As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.

As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

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

Freedom can never be taken for granted. Each generation must safeguard it and extend it. Your parents and elders sacrificed much so that you should have freedom without suffering what they did. Use this precious right to ensure that the darkness of the past never returns.

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

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.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

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.

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation

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.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

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.

I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a White man's court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and at home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice.

How can I be expected to believe that this same racial discrimination which has been the cause of so much injustice and suffering right through the years, should now operate here to give me a fair and open trial?....consider myself neither morally nor legally obliged to obey laws made by a Parliament in which I am not represented. That the will of the people is the basis of the authority of government, is a principle universally acknowledged as sacred throughout the civilized world.

The power of imagination created the illusion that my vision went much farther than the naked eye could actually see.

We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image

As a leader... I have always endeavored to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion. Oftentimes, my own opinion will simply represent a consensus of what I heard in the discussion. I always remember the axiom; 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.

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.