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
116 quotes“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great.”
“You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
“What concerns me is the persistent inability of the rich to imagine the lives of the poor.”
“For one to be free, all must be free.”
“The struggle is my life.”
“I will continue fighting for the freedom of my people until the end of my days.”
“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society.”
“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.”
“There is no shame in struggle.”
“Resistance to oppression is itself a form of dignity.”
“In every generation, the struggle is renewed.”
“The truth is, we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free.”
“It is a far harder road than the one we have traveled to be free.”
“For the seeds of freedom must be cultivated by every generation.”
“The journey is not over. The work is not done.”
“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity.”
“Only patience and persistence will carry us forward.”
“Be patient. The dawn always comes.”
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