Frasi di Nelson Mandela

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“Il perdono libera l’anima, rimuove la paura. È per questo che il perdono è un’arma potente.”

“Non giudicatemi per i miei successi, ma per tutte le volte che sono caduto e sono riuscito a rialzarmi.”

“Ho imparato che il coraggio non è la mancanza di paura, ma la vittoria sulla paura. L’uomo coraggioso non è colui che non prova paura ma colui che riesce a controllarla.”

“Esseri liberi non significa semplicemente rompere le catene, ma vivere in modo tale da rispettare e accentuare la libertà altrui.”

“L'istruzione è l'arma più potente che puoi usare per cambiare il mondo.”

“Ho percorso questo lungo cammino verso la libertà sforzandomi di non esitare, e ho fatto alcuni passi falsi lungo la via. Ma ho scoperto che dopo aver scalato una montagna ce ne sono sempre altre da scalare.”

“Non c'è nessuna strada facile per la libertà.”

“La maggior gloria nella vita non è non cadere mai, ma rialzarsi ogni volta che si cade.”

“Nessuno nasce odiando i propri simili a causa della razza, della religione o della classe alla quale appartengono. Gli uomini imparano a odiare, e se possono imparare a odiare, possono anche imparare ad amare, perché l’amore, per il cuore umano, è più naturale dell’odio.”

“Se parli con un uomo in una lingua a lui comprensibile, arriverai alla sua testa. Se gli parli nella sua lingua, arriverai al suo cuore.”

“L'uomo audace non è quello che non si spaventa, ma quello che conquista la paura.”

“Lo sport può risvegliare la speranza, dove prima c'era solo la disperazione.”

“Una persona che viaggia attraverso il nostro paese si ferma in un villaggio, e qui non ha bisogno di chiedere cibo o acqua. Appena arrivata la gente le offre il cibo, la intrattiene. Questo è solo un lato di Ubuntu ma Ubuntu ha anche altri aspetti. Ubuntu non significa che le persone non debbano dedicarsi a sé stesse. La questione piuttosto è: Vuoi farlo per aiutare la comunità che ti circonda a migliorare?”

“Unitevi! Mobilitatevi! Lottate! Tra l'incudine delle azioni di massa ed il martello della lotta armata dobbiamo annientare l'apartheid!”

“Il risentimento è come bere veleno sperando che un altro muoia.”

“La questione del cessate il fuoco non è nel suo vocabolario.”

“Niente come tornare in un luogo rimasto immutato ci fa scoprire quanto siamo cambiati.”

“Sembra sempre impossibile, finché non viene realizzato.”

“A Qunu, da bambino, non ebbi molto a che fare coi bianchi. Il magistrato locale, naturalmente, era bianco, e anche il gestore del negozio più vicino. Di tanto in tanto, viaggiatori e poliziotti bianchi attraversavano la nostra zona. Ai miei occhi erano splendidi come dei, e sapevo che bisognava trattarli con una sorta di paura e rispetto. Ma il loro ruolo nella mia vita era remoto, e in generale pensavo poco ai bianchi e ai rapporti tra la mia gente e quelle figure strane e distanti.”

“[Parlando di Miriam Makeba] Le sue melodie hanno dato voce al dolore dell'esilio che provò per 31 lunghi anni. Allo stesso tempo, la sua musica effondeva un profondo senso di speranza.”

“Sebbene per molti il signor Botha resti un simbolo dell'apartheid, noi lo ricordiamo anche per le iniziative assunte per aprire la strada a una soluzione pacifica e negoziata.”

“Unitevi! Mobilitatevi! Lottate! Tra l’incudine delle azioni di massa ed il martello della lotta armata dobbiamo annientare l’apartheid!”

“Quando un uomo ha fatto quello che ritiene il suo dovere per la sua gente e il suo paese, può riposare in pace.”

“Si dice che uno non conosce davvero un paese, finché non è stato nelle sue carceri.”

“Detesto il razzismo, perché lo considero qualcosa di barbaro, sia che provenga da un uomo di colore o da un uomo bianco.”

“Dirigi dalle retrovie — e fai credere agli altri di essere in prima linea.”

“Potrai ottenere di più in questo mondo attraverso gesti di misericordia, che attraverso atti di punizione.”

“La gente coraggiosa non teme di perdonare per il bene della pace.”

“L'odio annebbia la mente. Si interpone nel percorso strategico. I leader non possono permettersi di odiare.”

“Non sono un santo, a meno che non si pensi a un santo come un peccatore che continua a provarci.”

“Ho lottato contro la dominazione bianca, e ho lottato contro la dominazione nera. Ho coltivato l'ideale di una società democratica e libera, in cui tutte le persone vivono insieme in armonia e con pari opportunità. È un ideale che spero di vivere e realizzare. Tuttavia, se necessario, è un ideale per cui sono disposto a morire.”

“Nella cultura africana i figli e le mogli delle proprie zie e dei propri zii sono considerati fratelli e sorelle, non cugini. Noi non pratichiamo le stesse distinzioni tra parenti in uso tra i bianchi. Non abbiamo fratellastri o sorellastre. La sorella di mia madre è mia madre; il figlio di mio zio è mio fratello; il figlio di mio fratello è mio figlio, o figlia.”

“It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.”

“I hate race discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations. I have fought it all during my life; I fight it now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a black man in a white man's court. This should not be.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

“I must say that when we wanted to take up arms we approached numerous Western governments for assistance and we were never able to see any but the most junior ministers. When we visited Cuba we were received by the highest officials and were immediately offered whatever we wanted and needed. That was our earliest experience with Cuban internationalism.”

“I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.”

“Neither Bush nor Tony Blair has provided any evidence that such weapons exist. But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody talks about that. Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white. … Many people say quietly, but they don't have the courage to stand up and say publicly, that when there were white secretary generals you didn't find this question of the United States and Britain going out of the United Nations. But now that you've had black secretary generals like Boutros Boutros Ghali, like Kofi Annan, they do not respect the United Nations. They have contempt for it. This is not my view, but that is what is being said by many people.”

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”

“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.”

“I explained to the crowd that my voice was hoarse from a cold and that my physician had advised me not to attend. "I hope that you will not disclose to him that I have violated his instructions," I told them. I congratulated Mr. de Klerk for his strong showing. I thanked all those in the ANC and the democratic movement who had worked so hard for so long. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the wife of the great freedom fighter Martin Luther King Jr., was on the podium that night, and I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband's immortal words.
"This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy--pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops — Free at last! Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you."”

“In my country we go to prison first and then become President.”

“The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.”

“The people of South Africa have spoken in these elections. They want change! And change is what they will get. Our plan is to create jobs, promote peace and reconciliation, and to guarantee freedom for all South Africans.”

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”

“When in 1977, the United Nations passed the resolution inaugurating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, it was asserting the recognition that injustice and gross human rights violations were being perpetrated in Palestine. In the same period, the UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system.”

“I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to these Palestinian and Israeli leaders. In particular, we pay homage to the memory of Yitshak Rabin who paid the supreme sacrifice in pursuit of peace.”

“Any man that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.”

“You may succeed in delaying, but never in preventing the transition of South Africa to a democracy.”

“Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.
He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.”

“No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.”

“Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.
All this we owe both to ourselves and to the peoples of the world who are so well represented here today.”

“As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.
At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralizing society in God and soul; at a time when the colonized had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed.”

“Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.”

“Now is the time for celebration, for South Africans to join together to celebrate the birth of democracy. I raise a glass to you all for working so hard to achieve what can only be called a small miracle. Let our celebrations be in keeping with the mood set in the elections, peaceful, respectful and disciplined, showing we are a people ready to assume the responsibilities of government.
I promise that I will do my best to be worthy of the faith and confidence you have placed in me and my organisation, the African National Congress. Let us build the future together, and toast a better life for all South Africans.”

“The majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organization and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy.”

“In 1980s the African National Congress was still setting the pace, being the first major political formation in South Africa to commit itself firmly to a Bill of Rights, which we published in November 1990. These milestones give concrete expression to what South Africa can become. They speak of a constitutional, democratic, political order in which, regardless of colour, gender, religion, political opinion or sexual orientation, the law will provide for the equal protection of all citizens.
They project a democracy in which the government, whomever that government may be, will be bound by a higher set of rules, embodied in a constitution, and will not be able govern the country as it pleases.”

“When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?”

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”