We cannot blame other people for our troubles. We are not victims of the influx of foreign people into South Africa. We must remember that it was mainly due to the aggressive and hostile policies of the apartheid regime that the economic development of our neighbours was undermined.

We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful: those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image.

There are people here [in South Africa] who, whatever the debate is on a particular issue, their dominating idea is that at the end of the debate we must emerge stronger than we were before and closer to one another.

South Africans must recall the terrible past so that we can deal with it, forgiving where forgiveness is necessary but never forgetting.

I never think of the time I have lost. I just carry out a programme because it's there. It's mapped out for me.

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.

Resentment is like a glass of poison that a man drinks; then he sits down and waits for his enemy to die.