Nelson Mandela

"Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think."

"Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace."

"Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?"

"Give a child love, laughter and peace, not AIDS."

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

"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."

"I have retired, but if there's anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do."

"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."

"I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism."

"I would wear the blue overalls of the fieldworker and often wore round, rimless glasses known as Mazzawati teaglasses. I had a car, and I wore a chauffeur's cap with my overalls. The pose of chauffeur was convenient because I could travel under the pretext of driving my master's car."

"If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers."

"If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness."

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

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

"Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all."

"Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another."

"Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts."

"People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violence, that's how they'll react. But if you say, 'We want peace, we want stability,' we can then do a lot of things that will contribute towards the progress of our society."

"Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality."

"The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture."

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."

"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."

"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."

"When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind to me. I then was dragged into politics, and then, subsequently, I became a lawyer."

"Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it's very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country."