Quotes from Nelson Mandela

Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others. Prison desk calendar, written on Robben Island, June 2, 1979

To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy.

The human body has an enormous capacity for adjusting to trying circumstances. I have found that one can bear the unbearable if one can keep one's spirit strong, even when one's body is being tested. Strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation. Your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty.

If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent.

Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.

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.

The arbitrary and meaningless tests to decide black from Coloured or Coloured from white often resulted in tragic cases where members of the same family were classified differently, all depending on whether one child had a lighter or darker complexion. Where one was allowed to live and work could rest on such absurd distinctions as the curl of one's hair or the size of one's lips.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The grave plight of the people compels them to resist to the death the stinking policies of the gangsters that rule our country….

To deny people of their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the TRIUMPH over it

We do not want freedom without bread, nor do we want bread without freedom. Investiture, Clark University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, July 10, 1993

He did not need to be ordained, for the traditional religion of the Xhosas is characterized by a cosmic wholeness, so that there is little distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the natural and the supernatural.

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

our father came back and he left us alone because he has now become the father of the nation.

the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.

It is one thing to be told of possible hardships ahead, it is entirely another to have to confront them in reality.

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.

women had not weakened in their resolve to resist.