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I have always admired men and women who used their talents to serve the community, and who were highly respected and admired for their efforts and sacrifices, even though they held no office whatsoever in government or society.

Nelson Mandela

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Nelson Mandela
Age: 95 †
Born: 1918
Born: July 18
Died: 2013
Died: December 5
Autobiographer
Former President Of South Africa
Lawyer
Political Activist
Political Prisoner
Politician
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Mandela
Prisoner 46664
Madiba
Always
Effort
Highly
Men
Though
Efforts
Admiring
Community
Held
Admired
Society
Serve
Sacrifices
Used
Service
Admirable
Women
Sacrifice
Whatsoever
Government
Office
Respected
Even
Talent
Talents

More quotes by Nelson Mandela

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It is necessary to heal the wounds of the past If you are going to build your country and to have unity. I am working with people who fought me very bitterly before the elections. It was my responsibility as the man who is leading the majority party, my responsibility to heal the wounds of the past and to work with people who were my opponents.
Nelson Mandela
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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.
Nelson Mandela
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We can build a society grounded on friendship and our common humanity - a society founded on tolerance. That is the only road open to us.
Nelson Mandela
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It can be said that there are four basic and primary things that the mass of people in a society wish for: to live in a safe environment, to be able to work and provide for themselves, to have access to good public health and to have sound educational opportunities for their children.
Nelson Mandela
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Each of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld - a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.
Nelson Mandela
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It is not our diversity which divides us it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not.
Nelson Mandela
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There is little favorable to be said about poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship. Many people will appear to befriend you when you are wealthy, but precious few will do the same when you are poor. If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent. Yet, poverty often brings out the true generosity in others.
Nelson Mandela
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I was not born with a hunger to be free, I was born free.
Nelson Mandela
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I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.
Nelson Mandela
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In prison, illusions can offer comfort.
Nelson Mandela
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If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings.... What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.
Nelson Mandela
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The time comes in the life of any nation when there remains only two choices - submit or fight.
Nelson Mandela
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You know, you can only lead them from behind.
Nelson Mandela
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The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future, but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good, and leave behind what is bad.
Nelson Mandela
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Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
Nelson Mandela
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Since the dawn of history, mankind has honoured and respected brave and honest people.
Nelson Mandela
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If our expectations, if our fondest prayers and dreams, are not realized then we should all bear in mind that the greatest glory of living lies not in never falling but in rising every time you fall.
Nelson Mandela
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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.
Nelson Mandela
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I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.
Nelson Mandela
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Children are the most important asset in a country. For them to become that asset, they must receive education and love from their parents.
Nelson Mandela