Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela, (1918-2013) South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, imprisoned for 27 years, President of South Africa (1994-1999)

Nelson Mandela Quote

“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite.”

Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela
~ Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Ratings and Comments


Amy, Charlotte

Love the Mandela quotations today!

jim k, Austin, Tx

The color of his skin may have been red as he was a communist.

Robert Benitez, McMinnville

This negro was a communist. He murdered so many whites and raped so many whites women. He was helped by our corrupt government to continue to take away liberties from the Whites. He was an instrument of hate.
He was a racist, like so many negros in America.
We have always fought against communism. Those that want to take away your liberties and to be free. Whites made South Africa great for over 200 years. There history is parallel to North America.

Fed up, Everytown

Nelson Mandela was a hard-core communist. Under his leadership, white landowners had their land and property confiscated and then many of the women raped and killed.

He is the complete antithesis of freedom and liberty and you do a great disservice to those principles by quoting anything he said.

Mann, Kalamazoo

"People must learn to hate..." You were a giant born into a world of small-minded, small-hearted, violent men, Nelson. Thank you for your sterling example and your seemingly endless courage. Bless you on your definitive journey. Humanity will miss you.

E Archer, NYC

I think the quote is right on. People like Mandela and Gandhi have been misunderstood, I think. Mandela was only human after all. Yes, his party had leftist leanings, but parties often develop according to the opposition. People can only be as free as they are ready to be -- and the blacks were ready to stop being oppressed by the whites. Unlike America, South African blacks were in their own land with whites being the interlopers. African tribal governance obviously had an influence on the shaping of the new system.

E Archer, NYC

As for the violence committed against the whites when reforms were put in place to end the fascist oppression of blacks in their own country, is it really hard to understand? Look at the fascism in the USA today and the monopoly on money creation, banking, and the end of American sovereignty -- should this system be finally reformed, shall we not confiscate the wealth stolen from the People these last 100 years? If not, how can we prevent the continuance of their power over the nation? When a people are warred against for so long, expect them to war back when they realize there are more of the oppressed than the oppressors -- and to the victor go the spoils -- that is how the oppressors have done it.

watchman 13, USA

The Man with the Hoe
Thru this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Times tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Thru this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handy work you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul quencht ?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes ?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this man ?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores ?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings -
With those who shape him to the thing he is -
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries ?

A Watch in the Night

Three score valiant men
Around the Kings bed.
For that watch in the night -
Men upon the walls, also in the towers.
For that watch in the night -
Watchmen in the city walking in the street,
For that watch in the night -
A sword upon their thigh,
Because of fear in the night.
Keepers at the gates,
For that watch in the night -
A thousand buckles hang in the tower,
An armory full of shields,
Those all of mighty men.
For that watch in the night -
To protect the gardens, fountains of living waters,
We guard in the night.
Until the day break and the shadows flee away,
We watch in the night -

A day and a night Paul was in the deep
That we may know how to watch in the night.
Watchmen about the city,
Looking all around
For that watch in the night.
Children of light shine so bright in the dark of the night,
Gathering their armor at the tower in the night.
Ambassadors and men of light move about the city,
While the soldiers stand guard,
That children of light might move about
In the dark night.
A very large city to guard in the night !
Says the watchman in the night.

Author: Watchman 13

Maximus, Texas

The fact is that even Amnesty International refused to take on Nelson Mandela’s case because they asserted that he was no political prisoner but had committed numerous violent crimes and had had a fair trial and a reasonable sentence.

Nelson Mandela was the head of UmKhonto we Sizwe, (MK), the terrorist wing of the ANC and South African Communist Party. He had pleaded guilty to 156 acts of public violence including mobilizing terrorist bombing campaigns, which planted bombs in public places, including the Johannesburg railway station. Many innocent people, including women and children, were killed by Nelson Mandela’s MK terrorists.

South African President P.W. Botha had, on a number of occasions, offered Nelson Mandela freedom from prison, if he would only renounce terrorist violence. This Mandela refused to do.

watchman 13, USA

Moses killed the Egyptian so what is your point !

Mann, Kalamazoo

Maximus, it remains unchanged that one man's terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter.

Consider the 'terrorist' Founders of the USA. England's King and Courts condemned them as traitors, common criminals sentenced to die. Surely the King and his courtrooms were 'legitimate', but were the sentences just?

Or was it the traitorous Rebellion and its leadership that was justified?

If possessed of human flaws, as we all are, Mandela was and remains a moral, incredibly strong and courageous representation of humanity's potential. What he accomplished was nothing less than redeeming the future of millions of native Africans, precluding for them the same fate previously imposed on American Indians ... by European foreigners. He did what was necessary in order for millions of Human Beings to exist under civilized conditions minimally concomitant to modern life.

Nor did he ever deny responsibility for his own acts of excess, either, acts against murderously enforced social/legal exclusion. Upon ascension to power the ANC impanelled a historic, singularly successful 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission'.

Imagine making the entire Pentagon-CIA-NSA-FBI's record public! That will be a great day! Dark creatures hate the light, which is exactly why whistleblowers are imprisoned and murdered in the West these days.

Mandela brought light to South Africa, creative, blazing light. May his be an always-remembered example for the oppressed and exploited everywhere.

J Carlton, Calgary

Mandela was a murdering terrorist. He was offered amnesty if only he would renounce violence, he refused. His African National Congress then proceeded to set up torture and murder camps in Angola....so sweet and noble a man was Nelson Mandela. Winnie, his dear wife was fond of necklacing people...that where you put a tire around someone's body, fill it with gasoline and set it on fire. What big hearted Samaritans these two really were...And they've left behind a legacy of socialism and poverty....by all means let's raise these people to the status of hero...it fits right in with how absolutely twisted the minds of people have become. Love does come more naturally to the heart...but not Mandela's, he was a murderer.

watchman 13, USA

What will man do for a piece of bread. Will you begrudge a person who is made to steal when he is hungry. He comes from a dark continent. It always has been. There are still cannibals on the planet, what will you say about them ? It is best to leave them alone. Somebody wanted their land more than they. Not to cohabitate but to push away and enslave if need be. So is the pot going to call the kettle black !

Mike, Norwalk

Not shooting the messenger, the message is far more accurate than not.

E Archer, NYC

The quote taken on its on without consideration of ad hominem arguments has merit.  That being said, Mandela and his party were communistic in every regard and did not embody this sentiment in the least... hypocritical at best.

@

Get a Quote-a-Day!

Liberty Quotes sent to your mail box daily.