Top 100 Quotes About Mandela
#1. Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."
Kumi Naidoo
#2. Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.
Desmond Tutu
#3. Leaving golf aside for the moment, I'd choose Roger Federer as a sporting role model, Muhammad Ali for a sporting and non-sporting role model and Nelson Mandela as a true and lasting inspiration.
Rory McIlroy
#4. We're trained to see the world in terms of charismatic organizations and charismatic people. That's who we look to for leadership and change, for transformation. We're awaiting the next J.F.K., the next Martin Luther King, the next Gandhi, the next Nelson Mandela.
Paul Hawken
#5. Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.
Coretta Scott King
#6. Nelson Mandela said it this way, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.
Christopher Marco
#7. Of course, Nelson Mandela, everybody knows Nelson Mandela. I mean, he's a great gift not only for Africa but for the whole world, actually. But do not expect everybody to be a Nelson Mandela.
Mo Ibrahim
#8. In Durban, where I was born and grew up, and all over Africa, Nelson Mandela was a hero! Now he is a hero to the world.
Kumi Naidoo
#9. Nelson Mandela is awe inspiring - a person who really sacrificed for what he believed in. I feel truly humbled by him.
Annie Lennox
#10. The relationship between me and President Mandela right at the beginning was not a very well-established relationship. It was based on two meetings.
F. W. De Klerk
#11. When you are young and strong ... you can stay alive on your hatred" ... but realized later "They can take everything from me except my mind and heart"
Nelson Mandela from Long Walk to Freedom
Nelson Mandela
#12. I believe that anybody with Mandela's capacity to endure hardship and then forgive is a born leader and example to us all.
Rory McIlroy
#13. Mandela stands alone in possessing all of the qualities of other great men, but has one quality which is transcendent ... his ability to forgive and to place others above himself.
Kevin Allen
#14. It was spine tingling, actually, when you saw how people kept saying, "Release Nelson Mandela," and meaning really, "Release all of our political prisoners."
Desmond Tutu
#15. One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.
Kumi Naidoo
#16. Nelson Mandela once said "I can't help it if the ladies take note of me; I'm not going to protest."
Kumi Naidoo
#17. Unsurprisingly, Nelson Mandela had and still has many detractors.
Henry Rollins
#18. The charismatic portrait of the modern leadership looks nothing like Fidel Castro. It is a faceless portrait that epitomizes the toughness of Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela's charisma, and the most compassionate heart of Mother Theresa.
Anthony Obi Ogbo
#19. What an honor it was to step into the shoes of Nelson Mandela and portray a man who defied odds, broke down barriers, and championed human rights before the eyes of the world.
Idris Elba
#20. I didn't survive, I prepared." Nelson Mandela's answer when Tony asked him, "Sir, how did you survive all those years in prison?
Timothy Ferriss
#21. In life, purpose is defined by the thing that makes you angry. Martin Luther was angry; Mandela was angry; Mahatma Gandhi was angry; Mother Teresa was angry. If you are not angry, you do not have a ministry yet.
Myles Munroe
#22. When the image of Nelson Mandela may be more familiar to us than the face of our next-door neighbour, something has changed in the nature of our everyday experience.
Anthony Giddens
#23. I had the honor to meet Nelson Mandela, and I heard him explain his forgiveness of his captors of 27 years by saying hatred and bitterness is destructive - the power is in love and forgiveness.
Dick Gephardt
#24. Don't wait for a Gandhi, don't wait for a King, don't wait for a Mandela. You are your own Mandela, you are your own Gandhi, you are your own King.
Leymah Gbowee
#25. From time to time, you have seminal personalities who really change the way the world sees itself - people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Warren Buffett is that kind of person in the business world.
Guy Spier
#26. This sympathy is not translated into force against the British government because it is not like the anti- apartheid movement which had a high profile here and Mandela is a more engaging figure than Yasser Arafat.
Tom Paulin
#27. Consider Nelson Mandela who related; "When I had been released from prison and came home to my family, I went to embrace my daughter. She pushed me away. "You may be the father of the nation, but are no father to me." How is it, there are children who
Suzann Dodd
#28. This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
Nina Simone
#29. Nelson's Mandela own sense of himself was a very humble reading, [different] from how the world read him. And, quite often, you had the sense that he was not comfortable with all the accolades that would be.
Kumi Naidoo
#30. When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.
Ian McKellen
#31. I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.
Bono
#32. Right. So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela - who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing.
Rush Limbaugh
#33. As far as those kinds of things, I also played at the concert to call for the release of Nelson Mandela when he was a political prisoner in South Africa. We were celebrating his 70th birthday and calling for his release.
Jackson Browne
#34. President Mandela was never scared to admit his own mistakes and then almost jump at the opportunity of apologising and then to move on.
Zelda La Grange
#35. President Obama compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the struggle to bring about change. The comparison is flawed. They spent years in jail before taking political power, while politicians from Chicago do it the other way around.
Argus Hamilton
#36. Mandela is just the eternal man. You want that man to be around forever. It's the closest thing we have to God, I think. He's the father of mankind, almost.
Anton Corbijn
#37. Being black and speaking properly are not mutually exclusive. My father was an African, and he spoke beautifully at home. Nelson Mandela speaks beautifully. Should Mandela put his hat on backwards and say, 'Yo, homey, this is Nelson. Yo, Winnie, yo, this is def'?
Franklyn Ajaye
#38. I am what I am.........both as a result of people who respected me and helped me, and of those who did not respect me and treated me badly.
Nelson Mandela
Anthony Sampson
#39. I've tended to lean more toward the Dalai Lama and people like Russell Means who have been my political and spiritual North Stars, but I certainly regard Nelson Mandela with great respect and humility.
Ian Astbury
#40. Nelson Mandela is a leader Barack Obama should try to emulate ...
He could start by spending 27 years in prison.
Don Imus
#41. By the way, I don't mean to pick nits here, but Obama has just ordered the flag at half-mast for 10 days for Mandela. He did not order the flag at half-mast at all for Lady Thatcher.
Rush Limbaugh
#42. When Nelson Mandela walked free, the world sang with joy. Ever since, South Africa has stood as a beacon of hope for Africa.
Ban Ki-moon
#43. The political, social, and spiritual impact of the life example set by Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela might be measured in part by the profound and unique gestures made by people in different countries to honor his life upon learning of his death.
Aberjhani
#44. It was fortunate in looking back for South Africa and its entire people that Mandela and I found it possible to work together even though big strains developed between us from time to time.
F. W. De Klerk
#45. The first time I was privileged to meet president Mandela was during his visit to Malawi ... shortly after he was released from prison. I was amazed by his humility and his great sense of leadership ... Mandela's character has shaped my life.
Joyce Banda
#46. My greatest hero is Nelson Mandela. What a man. Incarcerated for 25 years, he was released in 1990 and he hasn't reoffended. I think he's going straight, which shows you prison does work.
Ricky Gervais
#47. Those 10000 days in prison, but this never made Nelson Mandela to leave what he was doing. He loved what he did and he would repeat to again if he had been arrested again and imprisoned again! He has his bigger picture in view!
Israelmore Ayivor
#48. Nelson Mandela said: 'It always seems impossible until it's done.' Peace is possible.
John Bonifaz
#49. Mandela has played a crucial part in history. He's done some extraordinary things, not only for his country but also for the whole world.
Zinedine Zidane
#50. Nelson Mandela will always be the face of South Africa. The traveler passing through the country will see Mandela's face almost everywhere he looks. Truly, the man is omnipresent.
Henry Rollins
#52. Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable.
Toni Morrison
#53. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time; a legend in life and now in death - a true global hero
David Cameron
#54. Mind you, you don't get albums written about really good people like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, do you? Good people's places in Heaven may be assured, but nobody's going to have a chart-topping album full of songs about someone's good deeds.
Mitch Winehouse
#55. I like people who are minimalist with their words. Jack Nicholson thinks a lot then says something, and it's always spot on. Nelson Mandela is the same.
David A. Stewart
#56. Mandela? He lasted 27 years in prison but he never could've done 30.
Serge Ibaka
#57. What I will remember most about Mr Mandela is that he was a man whose heart, soul and spirit could not be contained or restrained by racial and economic injustices, metal bars or the burden of hate and revenge.
Muhammad Ali
#58. Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.
Christopher Judge
#59. Nelson Mandela was just a human being, a person like other people, and everyone relaxed. Within a minute, that sort of thing about the leader and the lead, the gap was closed, and that's a rare thing.
Kumi Naidoo
#60. The ordinary people of Africa tended not to have room in their hearts for hatred. They were sometimes foolish, like people anywhere, but they did not bear grudges, as Mr Mandela had shown the world.
Alexander McCall Smith
#61. It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?
Idris Elba
#62. It is of vital importance to [Mandela] to be courteous and grateful at all times, as we never know whether we will have the opportunity to thank people or pay respect whenever they have been good to you.
Zelda La Grange
#63. Nelson Mandela is my hero outside of football. I was fortunate enough to meet him a couple of times. He was really clued up on his football and he knew me, so that was just unbelievable. It really stuck with me.
Ryan Giggs
#64. A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded, but by those who are in the arena, whose garments are torn by storms and whose bodies are maimed in the course of the contest. From a letter to Winnie Mandela,
Nelson Mandela
#65. I met Nelson Mandela, and I really didn't know what to say. It was years ago at a benefit. I was just in awe of this man because of what he'd done.
Robin Williams
#66. What happens with DMT is you leap over all the barriers in the first few seconds. Unlike mushrooms where over hours and hours on a high dose you might navigate yourself to the center of the Mandela, DMT is like being struck by metaphysical lightening.
Terence McKenna
#67. Like you do about Nelson Mandela, you can't help feeling the guy's a good man.
Ralph Steadman
#68. Nelson Mandela was in jail when I was really young, and Winnie Mandela was one of the biggest faces of the movement. In South Africa we have a common phrase - it's like a chant in the street and at rallies: "Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo." Which means, "You strike a woman, you strike a rock."
Trevor Noah
#69. I used to do my Nelson Mandela voice to blag restaurant tables in Cape Town. It rarely worked. Now what a great city that is.
Rory Bremner
#70. The world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.
Barack Obama
#71. Mandela once phoned me out of the blue while he was still president, and at first he played with me a bit.
Jonathan Shapiro
#72. I'd like to believe that I would be able to give in the same way Mandela did, but in reality, I don't know whether that is true. It is much more likely that I would be left with an immense sense of injustice and immense desire for revenge.
Naomie Harris
#73. I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.
Clint Eastwood
#74. It was a hallmark of Nelson Mandela's leadership that being open to change made him appear not weaker, but even stronger.
Klaus Schwab
#75. When I was growing up, Mandela's name was synonymous with terror. We were scared of him. You couldn't see any photos of him. A photo of him could have gotten you in jail.
Kenneth Bonert
#76. My thoughts and love go out to the Mandela family. Rest in peace Madiba. You will be missed, but your impact on this world will live forever.
Charlize Theron
#77. The legacy of Mandela is to have brought the country together ... South Africa can be one of the success stories of the 21st century.
David Cameron
#78. From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top.
Gary Hamel
#79. Around the world, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela
what they did was hard. It takes time. It takes more than a single term. It takes more than a single president. It takes more than a single individual.
Barack Obama
#80. President Mandela was not a hands-on president at any time.
F. W. De Klerk
#81. Do you realize, when Mandela was inaugurated president, he invited as his special guests the white jailers from his Robben Island prison? He literally did forgive everybody.
Rush Limbaugh
#82. What in Mandela was seen as an almost saintly ability to conciliate could, in a lesser man, be read as weak-kneed populism.
Mark Gevisser
#83. Nelson Mandela was an outstanding leader and a mentor for me. I was in South Africa at the time he was released. I was in South Africa when he was inaugurated as the first president.
Gail Kelly
#84. -After all this pain and heartache, how are you now able to forgive? You seem so at peace with yourself and your life. How are you so able to move on? ...
-Because Mr. Mandela asked us to.
Wes Moore
#85. Former South Africa President Nelson Mandela announced Tuesday he will begin writing his autobiography. He spent 25 years in prison before being elected to public office. In America, we do it the other way around.
Argus Hamilton
#86. Mandela and his first wife, Evelyn, on their wedding day
Hilary Brown
#87. Because Mr. Mandela's early opponents invested so many resources into distorting the true nature of his advocacy, the singular historic moment millions now celebrate could have been tragically lost to guerrilla decontextualization.
Aberjhani
#88. I think there's a mythology that if you want to change the world, you have to be sainted, like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Ordinary people with lives that go up and down and around in circles can still contribute to change.
Jody Williams
#89. Nelson Mandela understood that social transformation and economic transformation go hand in hand.
Klaus Schwab
#90. I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. From a response to an offer of conditional freedom, read by Zindzi Mandela at a rally, Jabulani Stadium, Soweto, South Africa,
Nelson Mandela
#91. I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas.
George W. Bush, on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007
George W. Bush
#92. Everyone who ever did anything revolutionary was just an eighteen-year-old kid once. George Washington, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela ... Social status is just a social construct, the primary function of which is to keep regular people oppressed and rebels in line.
Matthew Quick
#93. George W. Bush in Washington decided that Nobel Peace Prize winner and ex-president Nelson Mandela could probably be taken off the U.S. list of terrorists).
Jonas Jonasson
#94. MANDELA: a man deemed to be the greatest icon in Africa. his life thought me couple of lessons that always inspires me to strive hard for respect and to make an impact on humanity. may his footsteps continue to live for ever on the sands of time.
Victor Adeagbo
#95. [Mandela] had believed all his life that you are very much in control of your own body, and, in the process of healing, your mind had to be stronger than the medicines applied. You also had to have determination to get better.
Zelda La Grange
#96. When my daughter was born, I called her Ella Bella Mandela, because she was born the day after Mandela was released from prison.
Phil Daniels
#97. Mandela means a lot to the world. He's something special. There's only a few people in the history of mankind with that kind of charisma.
Ruud Gullit
#98. Why don't we have people like Thich Nhat Hanh or Marshall Rosenberg and Nelson Mandela solving violent situations in a peaceful way?
Sandra Cisneros
#99. I would say that as our struggles mature, they produce new ideas, new issues, and new terrains on which we engage in the quest for freedom. Like Nelson Mandela, we must be willing to embrace the long walk toward freedom.
Angela Y. Davis
#100. Nelson Mandela and myself had a wonderful relationship - he was a special man and will be missed.
Donald Trump
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