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Quotes from Long Walk to Freedom — Nelson Mandela

1918–2013 South Africa

← All quotes by Nelson Mandela

23 quotes

Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

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.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

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

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

I have always believed that exercise is the key not only to physical health but to peace of mind.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

No one is born hating another person because of the colour 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.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

You may succeed in delaying, but never in preventing the transition of South Africa to a democracy.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

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

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Any man that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

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.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

[T]o 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.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

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

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one's commitment.

Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Nelson Mandela (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.