Nelson Mandela Quotes

Che Guevara's life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom. We will always honor his memory.

i love playing and chatting with children...feeding and putting them to bed with a little story, and being away from the family has troubled me throughout my...life. i like relaxing at the house, reading quietly, taking in the sweet smell that comes from the pots, sitting around a table with the family and taking out my wife and children. when you can no longer enjoy these simple pleasures something valuable is taken away from your life and you feel it in your daily work.

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. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers and their fathers, who have grieved and wept for them ..... Not only have I suffered during these long lonely wasted years. I am no less life-loving than you are. But I cannot sell the birthright of the people to be free ....... Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.

Honour belongs to those who never forsake the truth even when things seem dark and grim, who try over and over again, who are never discouraged by insults, humiliation and even defeat.

We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death.

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.

The more informed you are, the less arrogant and aggressive you are.

We can't win a war, but we can win an election.

If you don't allow people to contribute, to offer their point of view, or to criticize what has been put before them, then they can never like you. And you can never build that instrument of collective leadership.

We must also know that even before liberation in 1994 there [in South Africa] were people with resources who tried to share with those who were deprived.

Keep your friends close - and your rivals even closer.

I know that, throughout the world, there are good men and women concerned with the greatest challenges facing society today - poverty, illiteracy, and disease.

A free press is one of the pillars of democracy.

I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.

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

With freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk has not ended yet.

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . .

There will be life after Mandela. On my last day I want to know that those who remain behind will say: 'The man who lies here has done his duty for his country and his people.'

The march to freedom is irreversible.

The world remains beset by so much human suffering, poverty and deprivation. It is in your hands to make of our world a better one for all, especially the poor, vulnerable and marginalised.

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.

You see, when there is danger, a good leader takes the front line. But when there is celebration, a good leader stays in the back room. If you want the cooperation of human beings around you, make them feel that they are important. And you do that by being humble.

Each of us, as citizens, has a role to play in creating a better world for our children

I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.

Freedom would be meaningless without security in the home and in the streets.

It is also the fate of leadership to be misunderstood. For historians, academics, writers and journalists to reflect great lives according to their own subjective canon.

If the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strenthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

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.

Out of the experience of extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.

All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil.

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

If you are stimulated by what you do, you never get tired

Thinking too well of people often allows them to be better than they otherwise would.

Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of H.I.V./AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.

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.

Freedom alone is not enough without light to read at night, without time or access to water to irrigate your farm, without the ability to catch fish to feed your family.

The most difficult matter is not so much to change the world as yourself.

We recall the joy and excitement of a nation that had found itself, the collective relief that we had stepped out of our restrictive past, and the expectant air of walking into a brighter future.

Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence.

Continuously, we have to fight to defeat the primitive tendency towards the glorification of arms, the adulation of force, born of the illusion that injustice can be perpetuated by the capacity to kill, or that disputes are necessarily best resolved by resort to violent means.

Trade justice for the developing world and for this generation is a truly significant way for the developed countries to show commitment to bringing about an end to global poverty.

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.

Children are the most important asset in a country. For them to become that asset, they must receive education and love from their parents.

If you don’t intend having a compromise, you don’t negotiate at all.

I dust [your photo] carefully every morning, for to do so gives me the pleasant feeling that I'm caressing you as in the old days. I even touch your nose with mine to recapture the electric current that used to flush through my blood whenever I did so.

Therefore, we must not look at the African people, even before they met whites, as if they had something unique, which was not to be found in other societies.

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