One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.

A garden was one of the few thing in prison that one could control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend it then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. The sense of being the custodian of this small patch of earth offered a taste of freedom.

No child in Africa, and in fact anywhere in the world, should be denied education.

You mustn't compromise your principles, but you mustn't humiliate the opposition. No one is more dangerous than one who is humiliated.

Hope is a powerful weapon, and (one) no one power on earth can deprive you of.

We must look within ourselves, become responsible and provide fresh solutions if we ever want to do more than complain,or make excuses.

That was one of the things that worried me – to be raised to the position of a semi-god – because then you are no longer a human being. I wanted to be known as Mandela, a man with weaknesses, some of which are fundamental, and a man who is committed, but never the less, sometimes he fails to live up to expectations.