One of the greatest leaders of the world and former South African President Nelson Mandela died at the age of 95 in South Africa on Thursday, 6th of December, 2013. Nelson Mandela was taken to the hospital earlier this year for an infection and was in critical condition in a hospital in Pretoria where he was getting treated for a lung infection. "Doctors are doing everything possible to ensure his well-being and comfort," said President Jacob Zuma at the time, adding that doctors were doing "everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable." Nelson Mandela was the sole instrument in the fight for freedom and against apartheid in the Republic of South Africa. Here are 28 great quotes from Nelson Mandela:
1. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
5. 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.
6. 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. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.
7. Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
8. No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
9. A new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.
10. I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.
11. Freedom would be meaningless without security in the home and in the streets.
12. 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.
13. The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
14. After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
15. When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
16. When there is danger, a good leader takes the front line; but when there is celebration, a good leader stays in the back of the room.
17. 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.
18. No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.
19. Even if you have a terminal disease, you don't have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.
20. I do not want to be presented as some deity. I would like to be remembered as an ordinary human being with virtues and vices.
21. A leader ... is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.
22. In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions. In the absence of these safeguards the phrase 'equality before the law', in so far as it is intended to apply to us, is meaningless and misleading. All the rights and privileges to which I have referred are monopolised by whites, and we enjoy none of them. The white man makes all the laws, he drags us before his courts and accuses us, and he sits in judgement over us.
I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.
22. Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
23. I learned to have the patience to listen when people put forward their views, even if I think those views are wrong. You can't reach a just decision in a dispute unless you listen to both sides.
24. I like a leader who can, while pointing out a mistake, bring up the good things the other person has done. If you do that, then the person sees that you have a complete picture of him. There is nobody more dangerous than one who has been humiliated, even when you humiliate him rightly.
25. Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
26.I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.
27. There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status.
28. 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 will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
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