Nelson Mandela’s full name was Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. He was a South African political leader, anti-apartheid revolutionary, and philanthropist. He was also South Africa’s first democratically elected president. He is a hero for everyone as he has contributed and worked for so many social works such as education, racism, etc. He is an inspiration for the youths. He was the first black leader of South Africa. He has worked very hard to get the same position for everyone in the society irrespective of colors, religions, and castes. People also call him by his nickname Madiba.
Madiba is the African name of his tribe. People call him with this name to show their respect and gratitude towards him for his tremendous work in society. He was more focused on education and taught society about the importance of education in life. He worked very hard to bring awareness among people to get educated and educate their children. He has also worked for rural development, school construction, etc.
Types of Quotes
Inspirational Quotes By Nelson Mandela
The quotes he has written and said will inspire the youths of the present generation to be kind, helpful, and compassionate and work towards the betterment of society. He has inspired a lot of people and also brought huge changes in society. Check out his best inspirational quotes.
- It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
- A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.
- Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.
- Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.
- Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation.
- It always seems impossible until it’s done.
- 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.
- I never lose. I either win or learn.
- We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
- What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.
Nelson Mandela’s Quotes About Love
The quotes he has written about love are unique and different. He has taught people that love never sees any color, caste, and religion, it only sees the soul. He has always opposed hatred and violence and has believed in love and non-violence. Here are some of his famous quotes on love.
- No one is born hating another person because of the color 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.
- Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.
- As long as many of our people still live in utter poverty, as long as children still live under plastic covers, as long as many of our people are still without jobs, no South African should rest and wallow in the joy of freedom.
- Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.
- A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.
- The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. 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. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.
- Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.
Best Quotes About Peace Poverty Freedom By Nelson Mandela
Poverty has always been an issue in society. Nelson Mandela has worked towards bringing changes in society and eradicating poverty and maintaining peace and enjoying freedom in society. He has worked as a philanthropist and has worked on various social issues such as poverty, education, rural development, racism, freedom, etc. Check out some of his famous quotes on poverty, peace, and freedom.
- One of the most difficult things is not to change society — but to change yourself.
- To the youth of today, I also have a wish to make: Be the scriptwriters of your destiny and feature yourselves as stars that showed the way towards a brighter future.
- Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.
- If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
- The dire poverty of some is not an affliction that impacts only on those who are deprived. It reverberates across the globe and ineluctably impacts negatively on the whole of humanity, including those who live in conditions of comfort and plenty.
- Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste, or any other social markers of difference.
- Today we should all ask ourselves: What have I done to improve the surroundings in which I live?
- Freedom cannot be achieved unless the women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression.
- It is easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.
- Our freedom cannot be complete while others in the world are not free.
Powerful Quotes On Education By Nelson Mandela
Education has always been his priority and he has many funds and organizations supporting education for children. As a philanthropist, his main focus was on education. He believed that an educated person has the power to conquer the world and can find for themselves. Check out some of his best educational quotes.
- The power of education extends beyond the development of skills we need for economic success. It can contribute to nation-building and reconciliation.
- 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 not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education. Those who do not believe this has small imaginations.
- No country can develop unless its citizens are educated.
- Young people must take it upon themselves to ensure that they receive the highest education possible so that they can represent us well in the future as future leaders.
- Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
- 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 farm workers 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.
- Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.
- A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.
Popular Nelson Mandela Quotes On Leadership
A great leader is one who never thinks about himself or herself but thinks about others and society. Nelson Mandela was a great leader who worked for the upliftment of society and also brought major changes in society. He has quoted some of the best quotes about a leader and leadership qualities.
- 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.
- Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.
- Difficulties break some men but make others. No ax is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.
- A real leader uses every issue, no matter how serious and sensitive, to ensure that at the end of the debate we should emerge stronger and more united than ever before.
- A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.
- 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.
- 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.
- I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
- If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important – and you do that by being genuine and humble.
- It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.
Long Walk To Freedom Quotes By Nelson Mandela
He has also written an autobiography titled ‘Long Walk To Freedom’ in which he has mentioned every struggle of his life, every issue of society, and many more things. He has written about the journey he experienced in his life from being in prison to bringing freedom to the country. This book contains some of his best quotes about freedom and society.
- It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.
- 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.
- It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their heart is touched, they are capable of changing.
- A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire.
- I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.
- I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.
- And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
- A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones
- Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.
- Losing a sense of time is an easy way to lose one’s grip and even one’s sanity.
Heartwarming Racism Quotes By Nelson Mandela
Racism and discrimination based on color, caste, and religion have been a serious issue for so many years. Even today, this issue is continuing. He tried to bring some changes in this and give an equal position to every individual in society. Here are some of his heartwarming quotes on racism.
- Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism, or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism that the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war.
- No one is born hating another person because of the color 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.
- I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now and will do so until the end of my days. Even though I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a white man’s court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice.
- Racism is a blight on the human conscience. The idea that any people can be inferior to another, to the point where those who consider themselves superior define and treat the rest as subhuman, denies the humanity even of those who elevate themselves to the status of gods.
- No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.
- Love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
- Political division, based on color, is entirely artificial; and when it disappears, so will the domination of one color group by another.
- We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty, and human rights, poverty, and freedom from want.
Wonderful Quotes By Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela was a great leader who was responsible for some major changes in society. he spent most of his life in prison for the betterment of people and society. He fought for freedom for the people. He fought for people to stop discrimination. The result is he was the first democratically elected as well as first black president of South Africa. Check out some of his best and most popular quotes.
- I am not a saint unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.
- There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find how you have altered.
- One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.
- Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.
- Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.
- 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.
- Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell and got back up again.
- Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.
- It is in the character of growth that we should learn from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.
- I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.
