Nelson Mandela quote: "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?"

Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independ...
NELSON MANDELA

I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure border...
NELSON MANDELA

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organizati...
NELSON MANDELA

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.
NELSON MANDELA

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot.
NELSON MANDELA

I made a mistake by being ejected from the presidency. Next time, I will choose a Cabinet which will...
NELSON MANDELA

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had un...
NELSON MANDELA

I was first imprisoned in Pretoria, and then, thereafter, I was taken to Robben Island. I stayed the...
NELSON MANDELA

I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world.
NELSON MANDELA

At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion that the struggle in South Africa is under the infl...
NELSON MANDELA

The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhun...
NELSON MANDELA

Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a ...
NELSON MANDELA

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.
NELSON MANDELA

Unlike some politicians, I can admit to a mistake.
NELSON MANDELA

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.
NELSON MANDELA

I have retired, but if there's anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not k...
NELSON MANDELA

I really wanted to retire and rest and spend more time with my children, my grandchildren and of cou...
NELSON MANDELA

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues - of my comrades in the movement - who...
NELSON MANDELA

Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitte...
NELSON MANDELA

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppressi...
NELSON MANDELA

The titanic effort that has brought liberation to South Africa, and ensured the total liberation of ...
NELSON MANDELA

There is nothing I fear more than waking up without a program that will help me bring a little happi...
NELSON MANDELA

We can't afford to be killing one another.
NELSON MANDELA

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we...
NELSON MANDELA

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including ...
NELSON MANDELA

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freed...
NELSON MANDELA

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so ...
NELSON MANDELA

From the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyer...
NELSON MANDELA

When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind t...
NELSON MANDELA

Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example...
NELSON MANDELA

You know, you can only lead them from behind.
NELSON MANDELA

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will re...
NELSON MANDELA

There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the...
NELSON MANDELA

Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.
NELSON MANDELA

I cannot say for certain if there is such a thing as love at first sight, but I do know that the mom...
NELSON MANDELA

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstan...
NELSON MANDELA

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

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.
NELSON MANDELA

We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, ...
NELSON MANDELA

If you are poor, you are not likely to live long.
NELSON MANDELA

Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.
NELSON MANDELA

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.
NELSON MANDELA

There is no such thing as part freedom.
NELSON MANDELA

Sometimes, I feel like one who is on the sidelines, who has missed life itself.
NELSON MANDELA

Even if you have a terminal disease, you don't have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challen...
NELSON MANDELA

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.
NELSON MANDELA

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.
NELSON MANDELA

Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it's ve...
NELSON MANDELA

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United State...
NELSON MANDELA

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Tw...
NELSON MANDELA

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident...
NELSON MANDELA

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
NELSON MANDELA

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
NELSON MANDELA

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an ou...
NELSON MANDELA

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate ...
NELSON MANDELA

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
NELSON MANDELA

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.
NELSON MANDELA

It always seems impossible until it's done.
NELSON MANDELA

Lead from the front — but don t leave your base behind.
NELSON MANDELA

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

We recall the joy and excitement of a nation that had found itself, the collective relief that we ha...
NELSON MANDELA

Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, b...
NELSON MANDELA

These numbers are staggering, in fact incomprehensible. By all accounts, we are dealing with the gre...
NELSON MANDELA

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

We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed ...
NELSON MANDELA

It always seems impossible until its done.
NELSON MANDELA

As a leader... I have always endeavored to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had ...
NELSON MANDELA

The power of imagination created the illusion that my vision went much farther than the naked eye c...
NELSON MANDELA

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to s...
NELSON MANDELA

I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I...
NELSON MANDELA

How can I be expected to believe that this same racial discrimination which has been the cause of so...
NELSON MANDELA

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Af...
NELSON MANDELA

My son has died of AIDS.
NELSON MANDELA

Give a child love, laughter and peace, not AIDS.
NELSON MANDELA

I am confident that nobody... will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still...
NELSON MANDELA

People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violenc...
NELSON MANDELA

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his ...
NELSON MANDELA

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

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.
NELSON MANDELA

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

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in ha...
NELSON MANDELA

In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than thei...
NELSON MANDELA

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you your...
NELSON MANDELA

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

Forget the past.
NELSON MANDELA

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

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

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.
NELSON MANDELA

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you...
NELSON MANDELA

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.
NELSON MANDELA

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory w...
NELSON MANDELA

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

I realized quickly what Mandela and Tambo meant to ordinary Africans. It was a place where they coul...
NELSON MANDELA

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he...
NELSON MANDELA

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
NELSON MANDELA

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of th...
NELSON MANDELA

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and en...
NELSON MANDELA

Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to fur...
NELSON MANDELA

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

Prison life, fortunately, I spent a lot of years, about 18 years with other prisoners, and, as I say...
NELSON MANDELA

It always seems impossible until it's done.
NELSON MANDELA

I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant a...
NELSON MANDELA

I would wear the blue overalls of the fieldworker and often wore round, rimless glasses known as Maz...
NELSON MANDELA

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

The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British i...
NELSON MANDELA

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non...
NELSON MANDELA

As an attorney, I could be rather flamboyant in court. I did not act as though I were a black man in...
NELSON MANDELA

I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I h...
NELSON MANDELA

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers fro...
NELSON MANDELA

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the othe...
NELSON MANDELA

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixte...
NELSON MANDELA

Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrins...
NELSON MANDELA

I came across few whites as a boy at Qunu. The local magistrate, of course, was white, as was the ne...
NELSON MANDELA

After one has been in prison, it is the small things that one appreciates: being able to take a walk...
NELSON MANDELA

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in...
NELSON MANDELA

Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the onl...
NELSON MANDELA

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a ...
NELSON MANDELA

On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that...
NELSON MANDELA

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human bein...
NELSON MANDELA

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought aga...
NELSON MANDELA

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

By ancestry, I was born to rule.
NELSON MANDELA

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

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhanc...
NELSON MANDELA

Today the majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It ha...
NELSON MANDELA

“It is said that no-one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should ...
NELSON MANDELA

There is nothing like returning to a place that reminds unchanged to find the ways in which you your...
NELSON MANDELA

Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.
NELSON MANDELA

Quitting is leading too.
NELSON MANDELA

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
NELSON MANDELA

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the ...
NELSON MANDELA

A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones
NELSON MANDELA

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.
NELSON MANDELA

I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.
NELSON MANDELA

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a ...
NELSON MANDELA

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not...
NELSON MANDELA

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and as...
NELSON MANDELA

call for a partnership of Africa and the United States, developing and developed countries to bring ...
NELSON MANDELA

Where is your bat? ... You're a handsome young chap you know.
NELSON MANDELA

What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think prop...
NELSON MANDELA

It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I ...
NELSON MANDELA

I regard it as a duty which I owed, not just to my people, but also to my profession, to the practic...
NELSON MANDELA

As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on socie...
NELSON MANDELA

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same
NELSON MANDELA

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or ...
NELSON MANDELA

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond meas...
NELSON MANDELA

It was the government that should have been told to refrain from its inhuman policy of violence and ...
NELSON MANDELA

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

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

We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting...
NELSON MANDELA

Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, po...
NELSON MANDELA

reaching the end of a long and heroic struggle.
NELSON MANDELA

You have shown courage that few have done in similar circumstances.
NELSON MANDELA

Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public invest...
NELSON MANDELA

You know you are really famous when becoming a comic character,
NELSON MANDELA

as if fire was shooting through my veins. Now I might marry, set up my own home and plough my own fi...
NELSON MANDELA

One of the few advantages of prison life is that one has time to read. This opened our minds and for...
NELSON MANDELA

One temptation of a leader elected unopposed is that he may use that powerful position to settle sco...
NELSON MANDELA

We... call for the rigorous implementation of the U.N. Security Council sanctions to oblige UNITA fu...
NELSON MANDELA

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will pass through the valley of the shadow ...
NELSON MANDELA

I voted for myself. Even if I go to my grave, I will wake up and come and vote.
NELSON MANDELA

A beautiful and important film about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It will eng...
NELSON MANDELA

As 1999 approaches, I will endeavor as state president to delegate more and more responsibility so a...
NELSON MANDELA

Such leaders have not perished. They are coming up in droves and inspire an entire continent,
NELSON MANDELA

The international community ... also made an important contribution to this struggle, ... not least ...
NELSON MANDELA

We cannot proclaim this century the African Century and then ignore the AIDS pandemic, as some polit...
NELSON MANDELA

We owe this to the countless men, women and children across generations who carried this anthem in t...
NELSON MANDELA

Our hope is that the elementary reading of comics will lead to the joy of reading good books,
NELSON MANDELA

said Nic Buchanan, the creator of the comic books. ''They don't know their own history. We celebrate...
NELSON MANDELA

But I'd like to declare that, when we have differed on an issue, at the end of that my respect for h...
NELSON MANDELA

A visit to this country by President Clinton is the high water mark.
NELSON MANDELA

He had the courage to admit that a terrible wrong had been done to our country and people through th...
NELSON MANDELA

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

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people, I have fought aga...
NELSON MANDELA

The government has interpreted the peacefulness of the movement as a weakness: the people's non-viol...
NELSON MANDELA

There was much in such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measur...
NELSON MANDELA

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society.
NELSON MANDELA

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the ...
NELSON MANDELA

Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way.
NELSON MANDELA

The time comes in the life of any nation when there remains only two choices - submit or fight. That...
NELSON MANDELA

Whatever the sentence Your Worship sees fit to impose upon me for the crime for which I have been co...
NELSON MANDELA

I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many have died since I w...
NELSON MANDELA

Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of ...
NELSON MANDELA

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
NELSON MANDELA

It is, however, well known that the main national liberation organizations in this country have cons...
NELSON MANDELA

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.
NELSON MANDELA

Then we'd get behind them and drive them up a valley. Then we'd stab a pig, it would cry, and then w...
NELSON MANDELA

I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hop...
NELSON MANDELA

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
NELSON MANDELA

Today we stand at the grave of one of the greatest among that generation of great freedom fighters.
NELSON MANDELA

That was one of the things that worried me - to be raised to the position of a semi-god - because th...
NELSON MANDELA

There is no such thing as part freedom
NELSON MANDELA

The curious beauty of African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad tale. You may be poor,...
NELSON MANDELA

When I think about the past, the types of things they did, I feel angry, but then again that is my f...
NELSON MANDELA

The power of imagination created the illusion that my vision went much farther than the naked eye co...
NELSON MANDELA

True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past.
NELSON MANDELA

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

Courage is not a lack of fear, but instead is continuing to push forward in spite of it!
NELSON MANDELA

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of bei...
NELSON MANDELA

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my ...
NELSON MANDELA

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?

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Nelson Mandela

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?

Nelson Mandela

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