If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.
If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.
A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.
Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
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.
In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than their brains.