Quote

Poetry cannot block a bullet or still a sjambok, but it can bear witness to brutality-thereby cultivating a flower in a graveyard.

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
Bear
Graveyard
Bears
Bullet
Flower
Cultivating
Poetry
Brutality
Cannot
Thereby
Stills
Bullets
Still
Block
Witness

More quotes by Nelson Mandela

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I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match.
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Our motto should be: let us make peace so that we can concentrate on the really important work that needs to be done. That is, alleviating the plight of the poor and the defenceless, for as long as most of humanity feels the pain of poverty we all remain prisoners.
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Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
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Other people have qualities that may be better than your own. Let them express them.
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It is important to not be hostile to what a greater part of society has embraced, whether as Christians, Hindus or Muslims. It is important to respect that because whether you believe or not in the existence of a superior being, humanity does believe in that.
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I told my cellmates about the oppression of the whites and apartheid. I helped organize hunger strikes and the like in my prison.
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We tried in our simple way to lead our life in a manner that may make a difference to those of others.
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When I closed THE GRAPES OF WRATH, I was a different man. It enriched my powers of thinking and discipline, and my relationships. I left prison more informed than when I went in. And the more informed you are, the less arrogant and aggressive you are.
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Information is a basic human right and the fundamental foundation for the formation of democratic institutions.
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If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important - and you do that by being genuine and humble.
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I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
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I am aware of what the position is in the United States of America. If somebody gives to charity, then he gets a tax incentive, provided the charity is registered in terms of the law.
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It is my deepest conviction that the children should be seen and heard as our most treasured assets.
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There's no such thing as part freedom.
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Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.
Nelson Mandela
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A movement without vision would be a movement without moral foundation.
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Honesty,sincer ity,simplicity, humility, pure generosity,abse nce of vanity,readines s to serve others -qualities which are within easy reach of every soul -are the foundation of one's spiritual life.
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South Africans must recall the terrible past so that we can deal with it, forgiving where forgiveness is necessary but never forgetting.
Nelson Mandela
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For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.
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No child in Africa, and in fact anywhere in the world, should be denied education.
Nelson Mandela