Nelson Mandela

I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.

Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.

Once a person is determined to help themselves, there is nothing that can stop them.

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.

If I had my time over I would do the same again, so would any man who dares call himself a man.

Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.

We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road.

Prison is a still point in a turning world, and it is very easy to remain in the same place in jail while the world moves on

It is not our diversity which divides us; it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not.

When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?

I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.

A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire.

Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.

No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.

I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans, I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.

I had no specific belief except that our cause was just, was very strong and it was winning more and more support.

The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.

There are thousands of people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence — against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences at this day at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate.

But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights

I do not deny, however, that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the Whites

Although we had no hope of defeating the enemy in the battlefield, nevertheless, we fought back to keep the idea of liberation alive.

A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded, but by those who are in the arena, whose garments are torn by storms and whose bodies are maimed in the course of the contest.

I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away

I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match.

In South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy.

Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.

If the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government.

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.

Non-violence is a good policy when conditions permit.

Violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid.

Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics.