Nelson Mandela

Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it's very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.

I am confident that nobody... will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still in good health, with my family, my friends and also with myself.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

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.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.