Top 323 Nelson Quotes & Sayings - Page 3
Explore popular Nelson quotes.
Last updated on April 15, 2025.
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.
Pulp paperbacks have always provided a training ground for men, Some of them went on to become respected authors - Dean Koontz, Nelson DeMille and Martin Cruz Smith, for example. Why couldn't a woman?
Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. And then he wins the world peace prize and becomes president of South Africa. That's how change happens. It's very important not to differentiate protest from the democratic process.
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Facts and figures from Nelson Mandela's life, set to the trailer from 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.'
"Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished."
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.
I am inspired by Nelson Mandela. I was a volunteer teacher in South Africa during apartheid, where I witnessed his success liberating black South Africans.
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.
Nelson Mandela represents an enduring example of the human spirit and he proved for eternity that the ideals of democracy and human rights can overcome even the direst of circumstances.
I was terrified, terrified in Songwriter, because there I was, New York Jewish girl, singing country-western onstage with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. I mean, forget it. I was so terrified.
I was terrified, terrified in 'Songwriter,' because there I was, New York Jewish girl, singing country-western onstage with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. I mean, forget it. I was so terrified.
I smacked her, cracked her, put her in a full nelson.
Reflecting on his years in prison, Nelson Mandela wrote that there were dark moments that tested his faith in humanity, but he refused to give up.
If they keep playing us on country radio and we get to keep doing cool stuff like playing with Willie Nelson, that's great.
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.
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.
And Barry Levinson is insanely funny. I don't know if you know this, not everyone does, but he and Craig T. Nelson were a comedy team back in the coffeehouse days of the late '60s.
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.
Today, I see thousands of Mahatma Gandhis, Martin Luther Kings, and Nelson Mandelas marching forward and calling on us. The boys and girls have joined. I have joined in. We ask you to join, too.
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.
I was obsessed with Nelson Mandela. I had big posters of him in my bedroom and he became my proxy father figure. He was in jail, so I could project all sorts of things about what he would say to me.
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!
Golf took young kids like Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and myself out of the caddie ranks and gave us money and a little bit of fame and let us live in the tall cotton.
It was spine tingling, actually, when you saw how people kept saying, "Release Nelson Mandela," and meaning really, "Release all of our political prisoners."
One of them would definitely be the Nelson Mandela gig, when I played the tribute song for him. He was up and dancing, and he really enjoyed it. It was a really lovely occasion.
Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."
[Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004]
My greatest hero is Nelson Mandela. What a man. Incarcerated for 25 years, he was released in 1990 and he hasn't reoffended. I think he's going straight, which shows you prison does work.
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.
If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.
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.
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.
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."
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.
Most people think that George Nelson, Charles Eames and Eliot Noyes invented industrial design. That is, of course, an exaggeration. George did it without any assistance from the other two.
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.
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 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.
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.
You'd hear Willie Nelson, then Earth, Wind & Fire, then Chicago, then Billy Joel on the same radio station. Nowadays, everything is compartmentalized.
Nelson Mandela understood that social transformation and economic transformation go hand in hand.
What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves.
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.
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.
Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.
Willie Nelson is the perfect person, it seems to me, to think about. Because something tells me that he operates on his own frequency.
Ever since Willie Nelson brought rednecks into an alliance with hippies back in the psychedelic '70s, Austin has milked its quirky libertarian spirit for a worldwide bonanza of free publicity.
I'd just gotten into Los Angeles from Texas, where I live, and the phone rang and it was the guy calling about the Willie Nelson video. I was totally excited about it.
A lot of people didn't know I was doing Broadway. They thought I was one of those guys who was famous for being famous. I was the one who sat next to Charles Nelson Reilly and said funny things.
Given the role that the space industry plays in our state, it was important for me to speak with former Senator Bill Nelson and ensure he knows the contributions the Huntsville area makes to the industry.
We cannot allow our Republican party to be based on what Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln may or may not do. What's smart about that? You do that, build a strong future on a foundation with unreliable keystones.
Many years ago, I spent 5k at a fundraiser to hang with another lame duck: Bill Clinton. I lobbied him to pardon Leonard Peltier, the Nelson Mandela of Native Americans.
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.
I was a Labour Party man but I found myself to the left of the Labour party in Nelson, militant as that was. I came to London and in a few months I was a Trotskyist.
With 'Half Nelson' we had a little bit more leeway to let the political be more present, because he was a social-studies teacher and this was what he was teaching the kids, so we'd have those direct-to-camera addresses.
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.
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.
Willie Nelson is a true champion. He pushed me to the limit where I had to figure out what punches to throw. But I put the pieces of the puzzle together and got the knockout, baby.
A lot of controversy over this possible invasion of Iraq. In fact, Nelson Mandela was so upset, he called Bush's dad. How embarrassing, when world leaders start calling your father.
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.
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.
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.
