Nelson Mandela Quotes

261 Sourced Quotes

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.

Nelson Mandela
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.

Nelson Mandela
There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.

Nelson Mandela
The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. 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. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

Nelson Mandela
There is a view that the past is best forgotten. Some criticize us when we say that whilst we can forgive, we can never forget.... The choice of our nation is not whether the past should be revealed, but rather to ensure that it comes to be known in a way which promotes reconciliation and peace.

Nelson Mandela
It is not the kings and generals that make history, but the masses of the people.

Nelson Mandela
A political movement must keep in touch with reality and the prevailing conditions. Long speeches, the shaking of fists, the banging of tables, and strongly worded resolutions out of touch with the objective conditions do not bring about mass action and can do a great deal of harm to the organization and the struggle we serve.

Nelson Mandela
There can be no greater gift than that of giving one's time and energy to help others without expecting anything in return.

Nelson Mandela
I enjoyed the discipline and solitariness of long-distance running, which allowed me to escape from the hurly-burly of school life.

Nelson Mandela
Who could doubt that sport is a crucial window for the propagation of fair play and justice? After all, fair play is a value that is essential to sport.

Nelson Mandela
The anchor of all my dreams is the collective wisdom of mankind as a whole.

Nelson Mandela
When we dehumanise and demonise our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences, and seek to justify violence against them.

Nelson Mandela
In the end, reconciliation is a spiritual process, which requires more than just a legal framework. It has to happen in the hearts and minds of people.

Nelson Mandela
We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.

Nelson Mandela
A bright future beckons. The onus is on us, through hard work, honesty and integrity, to reach for the stars.

Nelson Mandela
The challenge for every prisoner, particularly every political prisoner, is how to survive prison intact, how to emerge from prison undiminished.

Nelson Mandela
In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden; he, too, plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the results. 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.

Nelson Mandela
AIDS is no longer just a disease, it is a human rights issue.

Nelson Mandela
The Church was as concerned with this world as the next: I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church.

Nelson Mandela
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.

Nelson Mandela
The time will come when our nation will honour the memory of all the sons, the daughters, the mothers, the fathers, the youth and the children who, by their thoughts and deeds, gave us the right to assert with pride that we are South Africans, that we are Africans, and that we are citizens of the world.

Nelson Mandela
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?

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.

Nelson Mandela
Abject poverty is demeaning, is an assault on the dignity of those that suffer it. In the end it demeans us all. It makes the freedom of all of us less meaningful.

Nelson Mandela
It is the dictate of history to bring to the fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment, who cohere the wishes and aspirations of the oppressed. Such was Steve Biko, a fitting product of his time; a proud representative of the re-awakening of a people.

Nelson Mandela
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.

Nelson Mandela
Reconciliation means working together to correct the legacy of past injustice.

Nelson Mandela
Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.

Nelson Mandela
It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education.

Nelson Mandela
We can neither heal nor build if, on the one hand the rich in our society see the poor as hordes of irritants or if on the other hand the poor sit back, expecting charity. All of us must take responsibility for the upliftment of our conditions, prepared to give our best to the benefit of all

Nelson Mandela