Quotes from Nelson Mandela

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

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

Forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear.

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

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say.

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.

I detest racialism because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Quotes from Nelson Mandela part 2

Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all.

Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

When people are determined, they can overcome anything.

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

We can change the world and make it a better place.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice everything for the freedom of their people.

I am not a saint unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

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

I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for.

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger.

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

Difficulties break some men but make others.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur.

Leaders must be willing to serve, even if it means sacrificing their own glory.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.