Freedom is meaningless if people cannot put food in their stomachs, if they can have no shelter, if illiteracy and disease continue to dog them.
Nelson MandelaIt enables me to go to bed with an enriching feeling in my soul and the belief that I am changing myself.
Nelson MandelaNegotiation and discussion are the greatest weapons we have for promoting peace and development.
Nelson MandelaTherefore, 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.
Nelson MandelaIt was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
Nelson MandelaAs the years progress one increasingly realises the importance of friendship and human solidarity. And if a 90-year-old may offer some unsolicited advice on this occasion, it would be that you, irrespective of your age, should place human solidarity, the concern for the other, at the centre of the values by which you live.
Nelson Mandela