Nelson Mandela

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

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

I am the captain of my soul.

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

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

It always seems impossible until it is done.

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise.

The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.

Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found myself, myself as well.

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real center of the household.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.