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People tend to measure themselves by external accomplishments, but jail allows a person to focus on internal ones such as honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, generosity and an absence of variety. You learn to look into yourself.

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
Persons
Measure
Sincerity
Person
Absence
External
Look
Honesty
Jail
Looks
Tend
Accomplishment
People
Humility
Generosity
Ones
Allows
Accomplishments
Focus
Variety
Internals
Learn
Simplicity
Internal

More quotes by Nelson Mandela

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Strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty.
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Freedom can never be taken for granted. Each generation must safeguard it and extend it. Your parents and elders sacrificed much so that you should have freedom without suffering what they did. Use this precious right to ensure that the darkness of the past never returns.
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In my younger days, I was arrogant - jail helped me to get rid of it. I did nothing but make enemies because of my arrogance.
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It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.
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If you are stimulated by what you do, you never get tired
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It's not our weaknesses that frighten us. It's our strengths.
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We cannot blame other people for our troubles. We are not victims of the influx of foreign people into South Africa. We must remember that it was mainly due to the aggressive and hostile policies of the apartheid regime that the economic development of our neighbours was undermined.
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There is no future without forgiveness
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Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.
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Freedom alone is not enough without light to read at night, without time or access to water to irrigate your farm, without the ability to catch fish to feed your family.
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Our rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our nation
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The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle.
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The virtue and the strength of UWC is that it provides small, but powerful cells of innovation, catalysts for change, breaking barriers of habit and opening broader vistas of experience for both pupils and educationalists.
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I am convinced that floods of personal disaster can never drown a determined revolutionary nor can the cumulus of misery that accompanies tragedy suffocate him.
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There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.
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We must work together to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth, opportunity and power in our society.
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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.
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It is always impossible until it is done.
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South Africa is the most beautiful place on earth. Admittedly, I am biased but when you combine the natural beauty... and the fact that the region is a haven for Africa's most splendid wildlife... Then I think that we have been blessed with a truly wonderful land.
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One of the sad realities today is that very few people, especially young people, read books. Unless we can find imaginative ways of addressing this reality, future generations are in danger of losing their history.
Nelson Mandela