During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

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

In my younger days, I was arrogant - jail helped me to get rid of it. I did nothing but make enemies because of my arrogance.

I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all.

When we can sit in the face of insanity or dislikes and be free from the need to make it different, then we are free.

The laws that stopped blacks from voting were the worst, because they prevented blacks from voting someone into parliament who could change the other laws. Even though the blacks were the majority of the population, they were still not getting a say.

I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a White man's court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and at home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice.