Education is the great engine to personal development.
Why is it that in this courtroom I face a white magistrate, am confronted by a white prosecutor and escorted into the dock by a white orderly? Can anyone honestly and seriously suggest that in this type of atmosphere the scales of justice are evenly balanced?
As long as many of our people still live in utter poverty, as long as children still live under plastic covers, as long as many of our people are still without jobs, no South African should rest and wallow in the joy of freedom.
I appeal to the Youth and those on the ground: start talking to each other across divisions of race and political organizations.
Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom.
I admire young people who are concerned with the affairs of their community and nation perhaps because I also became involved in struggle whist I was still at school.
The Liberty Bell is “a very significant symbol for the entire democratic world.”
Trade justice for the developing world and for this generation is a truly significant way for the developed countries to show commitment to bringing about an end to global poverty.
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.
No matter what the past has dealt you, don’t let it destroy your future.
We forgive but not forget.
Although Verwoerd thought Africans were lower than animals, his death did not yield us any pleasure. Political assassination is not something I or the ANC ever supported. It is a primitive way of contending with an opponent.
Tread softly, Brathe peacefully, Laugh hysterically.
He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.
Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.
A government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it.
The death sentence is a barbaric act.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away.
I don’t think there is much history can say about me. I just want to be remembered as part of that collective.