Nelson Mandela
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 and is widely regarded as one of the great moral leaders of the twentieth century. Born in 1918 in Mvezo, he led the African National Congress's resistance to apartheid, was imprisoned for twenty-seven years (most of them on Robben Island), and emerged in 1990 to lead negotiations that ended white minority rule. His autobiography Long Walk to Freedom and his speeches — including the Rivonia Trial speech of 1964 ('I am prepared to die') and his 1994 inauguration address — are among the most-cited texts of modern political philosophy. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and died in Johannesburg in 2013.
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Quotes by Nelson Mandela
111 quotes“Children are our most precious resource. Protect them.”
“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 the child of farmworkers can become the president.”
“It is not the kings and generals that make history, but the masses of the people.”
“It is the workers and farmers, the doctors and clerks, the teachers and students.”
“The mothers and the fathers and the children.”
“In their daily lives they make the world.”
“Freedom is the condition of all forms of human flourishing.”
“Without it, no one is fully alive.”
“To live is to be in the long struggle for justice.”
“Beloved, the work is yours now.”
“In every dawn, a new chance to be free.”
“In every dusk, a chance to forgive.”
“In the long sweep of African history, courage is the constant.”
“Madiba, they called me. The name means dignity.”
“In every act of dignity, freedom is rehearsed.”
“My greatest commitment was to my people. My next was to my conscience.”
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