Top 689 Quotes & Sayings by Nelson Mandela - Page 12

Sport has the power to inspire and unite people. In Africa, soccer enjoys great popularity and has a particular place in the hearts of people. That is why it is so important that the FIFA World Cup will, for the first time ever, be hosted on the African continent in 2010. We feel privileged and humbled that South Africa has been given this singular honour of being the African host country.

I enjoyed the discipline and solitariness of long-distance running, which allowed me to escape from the hurly-burly of school life.

We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.

I am sure that if somebody is giving a sum to charity, he or she should be encouraged to do so by the authorities because the spirit in which we encourage people to give has permeated our society.

The greatest single challenge facing our globalised world is to combat and eradicate its disparities.

Adversity cleanses the lethargies of man

The first election in which all South Africans took part was in April, 1994. There were long queues [lines] of employers and employees, black and white. In the sense of Africans, Coloreds and Indians - when I talk about blacks, I mean those three. Blacks and whites mingled to vote without any hitches. Many people would have expected a great deal of tension, clashes and violence, but it did not occur.

Why is it that in this courtroom I face a white magistrate, am confronted by a white prosecutor and escorted into the dock by a white orderly? Can anyone honestly and seriously suggest that in this type of atmosphere the scales of justice are evenly balanced?

I've found that South Africa has produced good leaders. These are people who realize that when there is danger, they should be in the forefront and when there is victory to be celebrated, they should be in the background, allowing their colleagues and the ordinary civilians - the man in the street - to rejoice and to celebrate that victory.

Regarding African education in this country, there was a time when the government took no interest whatsoever in African education. It was the churches, that part of civil society, which bought land, built schools, and employed and paid teachers. People like myself, right from grade eight up to university, I was in missionary schools.

In many respects, people on the outside suffered more than those of us in jail. In prison, we ate three times a day, we had clothing, we had free medical services, and we could sleep for 12 hours.

I told my cellmates about the oppression of the whites and apartheid. I helped organize hunger strikes and the like in my prison.

One effect of sustained conflict is to narrow our vision of what is possible.

Let us give practical recognition to the injustices of the past,by building a future based on equality&social justice

One effect of sustained conflict is to narrow our vision of what is possible. Time and time again, conflicts are resolved through shifts that were unimaginable at the start.

We must also know that even before liberation in 1994 there [in South Africa] were people with resources who tried to share with those who were deprived.

I was neglected by my family because I had disappointed them - I'd run away from being forced into an arranged marriage, which was a big blow to them.

I do not think that I was brought up in a unique society with unique features about giving.

I have always endeavoured to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion.

Some of the mission groups that have been responsible for our education have not been part of the government. In fact, they acted contrary to what the government had planned to do.

Therefore, 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.

In all disputes, a point is arrived at where no party, no matter how right or wrong it might have been at the start of that dispute, will any longer be totally in the right or totally in the wrong. Such a point I believe, has been reached in this debate... Let us not equivocate. A tragedy of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in Africa.

Of course we desire education and we think it is a good thing, but you don't have to have education in order to know that you want certain fundamental rights, you have got aspirations, you have got acclaims. It has nothing to do with education whatsoever.

We have introduced equity into our life, including a uniform educational system. We have also introduced a Bill of Rights, which is not just a piece of paper, but a living document because we have created structures that are totally independent of the government and that can overrule the government, even the president.

I feel like a young man of 15.

Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence.

It is important to not be hostile to what a greater part of society has embraced, whether as Christians, Hindus or Muslims. It is important to respect that because whether you believe or not in the existence of a superior being, humanity does believe in that.

Our people outside of prison used my name to mobilize the community locally and internationally. But for me to be treated separately from my colleagues, who had contributed as much as and even more than I had, would have been a betrayal of them.

I am aware of what the position is in the United States of America. If somebody gives to charity, then he gets a tax incentive, provided the charity is registered in terms of the law.