Best Nelson Mandela Quotes

This is a collection of the most inspiring and motivating Nelson Mandela quotes. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 and died in 2013. He was instrumental in the anti-apartheid fight in South Africa, imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island and later became president of South Africa. His legacy lives on and continues to inspire many. 

Nelson Mandela Quotes

• “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”


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

• "There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires."

• "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

• "For 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."

• "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

• "Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual."

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

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

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

More Nelson Mandela Quotes

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

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

• “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.”

• “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up”

• "After one has been in prison, it is the small things that one appreciates: being able to take a walk whenever one wants, going into a shop and buying a newspaper, speaking or choosing to remain silent. The simple act of being able to control one's person."

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

• “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”

• “A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”

• “Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.”

• “Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”

Even More Nelson Mandela Quotes

• “Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves.”

• “Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?”

• “We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

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

• “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

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

• “As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.”

• “Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.”
  

• “It always seems impossible until it's done.”
  

• “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.”
  

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