Top 241 Mandela S Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

Nelson Mandela just died, so that says so much because it's a tremendously powerful and great man who was very sensitive. Loved all people, forgave his enemies, and showed the world how to stand up and do it the right way.

Nelson Mandela was an outstanding leader and a mentor for me. I was in South Africa at the time he was released. I was in South Africa when he was inaugurated as the first president.

Just look at the great Nelson Mandela. He came out of prison and saved his entire country. Some of the best people in the world have spent time in prison.

My campaign to become leader of the ANC was pivoted on two things: Renewing the ANC and taking back to the values the were espoused and subscribed to by Nelson Mandela, Oliver Thambo, and many other leaders.

[Meeting Mandela] was the highlight of my career; to meet such a great man and a strong man and such a passionate man about sport and life will always stay with me.

Do you realize, when Mandela was inaugurated president, he invited as his special guests the white jailers from his Robben Island prison? He literally did forgive everybody.

Nelson Mandela was one of the most influential people in my life. He was my hero, my friend, and also a companion to me in our fight for the people and for world peace. Let us all continue his legacy with purpose and passion.

What we did was to try and exploit that spirit [the idea of giving], which was there even before I approached individual South Africans [to give to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund]. I think we must start from that angle.

I had the honor to meet Nelson Mandela, and I heard him explain his forgiveness of his captors of 27 years by saying hatred and bitterness is destructive - the power is in love and forgiveness.

Many say that a man comes along with the moral courage of Nelson Mandela once in a lifetime. He was an extraordinary man who paid a great sacrifice for his beliefs, then led a nation from the prospect of civil war to reconciliation.

Because Mr. Mandela's early opponents invested so many resources into distorting the true nature of his advocacy, the singular historic moment millions now celebrate could have been tragically lost to guerrilla decontextualization.

What I will remember most about Mr Mandela is that he was a man whose heart, soul and spirit could not be contained or restrained by racial and economic injustices, metal bars or the burden of hate and revenge.

The fact is, human rights victories are rarely won by powerful governments or well-armed militaries. More often than not, these battles are led by individuals and small groups of people determined to overcome wrong. Think King, Gandhi, Mandela.

Mandela was true to himself, to his people and his principles. He sacrificed everything because he was prepared to be true to his ideals. You can relate to him whether you come from Manchester or Soweto.

I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.

When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.

Listen, here's reality. It is completely unfair and absolutely necessary that people who have been oppressed and marginalized have to lead everybody. That is MLK, that is Dolores Huerta, that is Fannie Lou Hamer, that is Ella Jo Baker, that is Nelson Mandela. You walk down the line.

One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.

Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.

There were only 3 people that I wanted to meet in life, Nelson Mandela was one of them. What a life, what a journey, what a man. Thank you for passing this way! God bless your resting soul!

Nelson Mandela was just a human being, a person like other people, and everyone relaxed. Within a minute, that sort of thing about the leader and the lead, the gap was closed, and that's a rare thing.

Nelson Mandela, a better man, not a bitter man, made our world a better place in which to live. His life and leadership exemplify the highest courage, dignity, and dedication to human liberation.

Nelson Mandela saw the potential of Africa and dedicated his life to changing the world in which we live while inspiring a movement towards social justice, peace and equal human rights.

This sympathy is not translated into force against the British government because it is not like the anti- apartheid movement which had a high profile here and Mandela is a more engaging figure than Yasser Arafat.

I've tended to lean more toward the Dalai Lama and people like Russell Means who have been my political and spiritual North Stars, but I certainly regard Nelson Mandela with great respect and humility.

If you look at South Africa and President Nelson Mandela, it was people of the world who held their hands together and stood up to make a difference. So 'people power' is important.

My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela is physically separated from us, but his soul and spirit will never die. He belongs to the whole world because he is an icon of equality, freedom and love, the values we need all the time everywhere.

Mandela drafted the M Plan, a simple, commonsense plan for organization on a street basis so that Congress volunteers would be in daily touch with the people, alert to their needs and able to mobilize them.

The world has lost a visionary leader, a courageous voice for justice, and a clear moral compass. By showing us that the path to freedom and human dignity lies in love, wisdom and compassion for one another, Nelson Mandela stands as an inspiration to us all.

There may never be another Madiba. But instead of waiting for the next Nelson Mandela to emerge, those whom he universally inspired are now looking to themselves and each other to build their own dream together.

It was fortunate in looking back for South Africa and its entire people that Mandela and I found it possible to work together even though big strains developed between us from time to time.

President Obama compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the struggle to bring about change. The comparison is flawed. They spent years in jail before taking political power, while politicians from Chicago do it the other way around.

Mandela's heroism is the heroism of a man who suffered so badly for what he thought of as freedom. And yet when he had the upper hand he has this incredible self-control and these incredible leadership qualities.

Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable.

I was 15 years old when I first heard the name Mandela, or Madiba, as he is fondly known in Africa. In apartheid South Africa he was public enemy number one. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and rumour, the media called him 'The Black Pimpernel'.

Any child who dreams to do good in the world has Mandela as his hero. I own a dog-eared copy of 'Long Walk to Freedom' and visited Robben Island, where he was imprisoned, to stand in a cell only as wide as an arm's span.

I think the most moving part of my trip [to Africa] so far was seeing 92-year-old Nelson Mandela, and just thinking about his life. This man has lived through a struggle that few nations have known.

Of all the many leaders I have met in the course of my life, none made a deeper impression on me than Nelson Mandela. His courage, compassion, humility and wisdom were without parallel on the world stage, and he himself was an enduring source of inspiration.

After 'Homeland,' I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I've done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.

When I first met Mandela, we did not discuss anything of substance; we just felt each other out. He spent a long time expressing his admiration for the Boer generals and how ingenious they were during the Anglo-Boer war.

As far as those kinds of things, I also played at the concert to call for the release of Nelson Mandela when he was a political prisoner in South Africa. We were celebrating his 70th birthday and calling for his release.

In 1985, I joined my mother in a protest against apartheid in which we were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. And she was at President-elect Mandela's side in Johannesburg when he claimed victory in South Africa's first free elections.

Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."

As president, I watched in wonder as Nelson Mandela had the remarkable capacity to forgive his jailers following 26 years of wrongful imprisonment - setting a powerful example of redemption and grace for us all.

There has been no more principled opposition to racism than Jeremy Corbyn: he was getting arrested for protesting against Apartheid when the rest of them were doing deals and calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist.

Nelson Mandela understood that social transformation and economic transformation go hand in hand.

Former South Africa President Nelson Mandela announced Tuesday he will begin writing his autobiography. He spent 25 years in prison before being elected to public office. In America, we do it the other way around.

Very sad to hear about the passing of Nelson Mandela. He was a true inspiration for human rights and equality for South Africa and the reason apartheid no longer exists there. The world will never forget his capacity for forgiveness and magnanimity. RIP

Nelson's Mandela own sense of himself was a very humble reading, [different] from how the world read him. And, quite often, you had the sense that he was not comfortable with all the accolades that would be.

When [Nelson Mandela] was in prison I admired him for his moral strength... Of his period in power I can see few results. Apartheid no longer exists, at least to all appearances, but no one understands what the new government in South Africa is doing.

Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.

The person I respect most, in terms of historical figures, is probably Nelson Mandela. I just think that his tolerance in the face of extreme provocation is something every single person on the planet could learn from.

We want Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa to know that we will stand shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, until apartheid is eradicated.

I think there's a mythology that if you want to change the world, you have to be sainted, like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Ordinary people with lives that go up and down and around in circles can still contribute to change.

You all must realize that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others - hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle.

For those who may not know, it was the CBC that put in place the legislation that put sanctions against South Africa to end apartheid, and that took Mandela off the terrorist list.

I think there’s a mythology that if you want to change the world, you have to be sainted, like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Ordinary people with lives that go up and down and around in circles can still contribute to change.

What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves.

In life, purpose is defined by the thing that makes you angry. Martin Luther was angry; Mandela was angry; Mahatma Gandhi was angry; Mother Teresa was angry. If you are not angry, you do not have a ministry yet.