Quotes from nelson mandela autobiography long walk

Long Walk to Freedom is deeply inspiring. More than that, though, the book is a wonderful model for anyone fighting for a just cause against overwhelming odds. Mandela is a master at balancing long- and short-term goals, making smart compromises, and not letting emotion supersede tactics. Luckily for us, he offers up many quotable passages that provide food for thought.

Here are my seven favorite, with a note or two on how I think they have broader applications. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire. The MSM oftentimes tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the subjects it covers. Thank goodness for Jon Stewart. Johns, small and lovely colonial towns that dotted the shimmering beaches fronting the Indian Ocean.

A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards. 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.

Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.

Quotes from nelson mandela autobiography long walk: “No one is born

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

I was abused.

Quotes from nelson mandela autobiography long walk: Nelson Mandela: I have

I lost my marriage and the best years of my life. I was angry. And I was afraid, because I had not been free in so long. But as I got closer to the car that would take me away, I realized that when I went through that gate, if I still hated them, they would still have me. I wanted to be free. A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards, but when I was notified that I had won the Nobel peace prize jointly with Mr.

The award was a tribute to all South Africans, and especially to those who fought in the struggle; I would accept it on their behalf. The doctors and nurses treated me in a natural way as though they had been dealing with blacks on a basis of equality all their lives. It reaffirmed my long-held belief that education was the enemy of prejudice.

These were men and women of science, and science had no room for racism. Politics can be strengthened by music, but music has a potency that defies politics. Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure. 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. There was much in such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of revolutionary democracy in which none will be held in slavery. When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both.

Quotes from nelson mandela autobiography long walk: › nelson-mandela-inspiring-quotations-long-walk-t.

I enjoyed the discipline and solitariness of long-distance running, which allowed me to escape from the hurly-burly of school life. The challenge for every prisoner, particularly every political prisoner, is how to survive prison intact, how to emerge from prison undiminished. In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life.

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Quotes from nelson mandela autobiography long walk: Freedom is indivisible; the chains

Refresh and try again. Long Walk to Freedom Quotes Showing of 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. 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.