Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom.

I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.

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

Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one's commitment.

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.

As long as many of our people still live in utter poverty, as long as children still live under plastic covers, as long as many of our people are still without jobs, no South African should rest and wallow in the joy of freedom.

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