Nelson Mandela

Former president of South Africa and long time champion of the anti-apartheid movement, Nelson Mandela, died today at the age of 95. Nelson Mandela will be remembered for many things including his pursuit of racial equality and bringing an end to poverty and segregation.  He is a true leader and his words from will continue to educate and inspire people around the world.  Hopefully the 28 quotes below will do just that for you.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

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.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

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.

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.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

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 its 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.

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.

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.

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.

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?

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

Forget the past.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

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 can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

There is nothing I fear more than waking up without a program that will help me bring a little happiness to those with no resources, those who are poor, illiterate, and ridden with terminal disease.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013