Nelson Mandela citáty

strana 3

„Když promluvíte k člověku jazykem, kterému rozumí, mluvíte k jeho hlavě. Když k němu promluvíte jeho vlastním jazykem, mluvíte s jeho srdcem.“

„Dobrá hlava a dobré srdce jsou vždy skvělou kombinací.“

„Není nad to vrátit se na místo, které se nezměnilo, a zjistit, jak jste se změnili vy sami.“

„Opravdoví vůdci musí být připraveni obětovat za svobodu svého lidu vše.“

„Při přípravě na cestu vpřed nezapomeňte oslavit milníky.“

„Když je člověku upíráno právo žít život, v nějž věří, nezbývá mu než se stát vyvrhelem.“

„Není žádná vášeň v tom, že si hrajete na malého - že se spokojíte s životem, který je méně než ten, který jste schopni žít.“

„To, co se v životě počítá, není pouhý fakt, že jsme žili. To, jak jsme změnili životy druhých k lepšímu, rozhodne o významu života, který vedeme.“

„Bojuji proti bílé nadvládě a bojuji proti černé nadvládě. Ctím ideál demokratické a svobodné společnosti, kde všichni lidé žijí spolu v harmonii a s rovnými příležitostmi. Je to ideál, pro který doufám, že žiji a kterého dosáhnu. Pokud tomu však bude třeba, je to ideál, za který jsem připraven zemřít.“

„Základní starost o druhé v našich osobních i společenských životech výrazně napomáhá k vytvoření lepšího místa na tomto světě, jak o tom tak vášnivě sníme.“

„Nikdo se nerodí s nenávistí k lidem s jinou barvou pleti, či jiným vyznáním víry. Lidé se nenávidět učí a když se dokáží naučit nenávidět, dokážeme je naučit i milovat. Navíc láska je lidskému srdci přirozenější.“

„Chudoba není nehoda. Jako otroctví či rasová nesnášenlivost. Stvořili ji lidé a zničit ji dokážou jen lidskostí.“

„Mnoho lidí v této zemi už zaplatilo přede mnou a mnozí zaplatí po mně.“

„Naučil jsem se, že odvaha neznamená absenci strachu, ale vítězství nad ním. Statečný člověk není ten, který se nebojí, ale ten, kdo svůj strach překoná.“

„Mám rád přátele, kteří mají nezávislou mysl, protože mají tendenci přimět vás vidět problémy z jiných úhlů.“

„Vzdělání je ta nejsilnější zbraň, kterou lze změnit svět.“

„Akce bez počáteční vize je mrhání časem. Vize bez akce je obyčejné snění. Ale akce s vizí mohou změnit svět.“

„Skutečný vůdce je jako pastýř, který zůstává za stádem a vepředu nechává jít ty nejmrštnější, za kterými jdou ostatní, aniž by si uvědomovali, že jsou řízeni zezadu.“

„Boj proti chudobě není gestem charity. Je to projev spravedlnosti.“

„Jen pravda může poslat minulost na odpočinek.“

„Po tom, co projdete vysoký kopec si uvědomíte, že máte před sebou ještě mnoho takových kopců.“

„Naše svoboda není kompletní bez svobody Palestinců; bez vyřešení konfliktů v Súdánu a dalších částech světa.“

„Ti, kdo jednají s morálkou, poctivě a důsledně, se nemusí obávat sil nehumánnosti a krutosti.“

„Kritický, nezávislý a investigativní tisk je životní mízou každé demokracie. Tisk musí být bez státního zasahování. Musí mít ekonomickou sílu postavit se pochlebování vládních úředníků. Musí mít dostatečnou nezávislost, aby mohl být troufalý a zvídavý beze strachu či zaujatosti. Musí být pod ochranou ústavy, aby mohl ochraňovat naše práva jako občanů.“

„Nikdy nemyslím na čas, který jsem ztratil. Zkrátka pokračuji v programu, protože je tam. Je to pro mě naplánováno.“

„Cíl, kterého chceme dosáhnout, je dovršením tužeb celého lidstva po lidské důstojnosti a lidském naplnění.“

„Nikdy jsem žádného muže nepovažoval za svého nadřízeného, ani mimo vězení, ani ve vězení.“

“Friends, Comrades and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.”

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

“The names of those who were incarcerated on Robben Island is a roll call of resistance fighters and democrats spanning over three centuries. If indeed this is a Cape of Good Hope, that hope owes much to the spirit of that legion of fighters and others of their calibre.”

“There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.”

“I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.”

“Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.
He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.
He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.”

“Let's hope that Ken Oosterbroek will be the last person to die.”

“I remember we adjourned for lunch and a friendly Afrikaner warder asked me the question, "Mandela, what do you think is going to happen to you in this case?" I said to him, "Agh, they are going to hang us." Now, I was really expecting some word of encouragement from him. And I thought he was going to say, "Agh man, that can never happen." But he became serious and then he said, "I think you are right, they are going to hang you."”

“I watched, along with all of you, as the tens of thousands of our people stood patiently in long queues for many hours. Some sleeping on the open ground overnight waiting to cast this momentous vote.”

“A great measure of world poverty today and African poverty in particular is due to the continuing dependence on foreign markets for manufactured goods, which undermines domestic production and dams up domestic skills, apart from piling up unmanageable foreign debts. Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today, could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.”

“Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O. A. U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."”

“It's a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U. S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq’s oil.”

“I had no specific belief except that our cause was just, was very strong and it was winning more and more support.”

“Because of their courage and persistence for many years, we can, today, even set the dates when all humanity will join together to celebrate one of the outstanding human victories of our century.
When that moment comes, we shall, together, rejoice in a common victory over racism, apartheid and white minority rule.”

“It is fit and proper to raise the question sharply, what is this rigid color-bar in the administration of justice? 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?
Why is it that no African in the history of this country has ever had the honor of being tried by his own kith and kin, by his own flesh and blood?
I will tell Your Worship why: the real purpose of this rigid color-bar is to ensure that the justice dispensed by the courts should conform to the policy of the country, however much that policy might be in conflict with the norms of justice accepted in judiciaries throughout the civilised world.”

“We thank all our distinguished international guests for having come to take possession with the people of our country of what is, after all, a common victory for justice, for peace, for human dignity. We trust that you will continue to stand by us as we tackle the challenges of building peace, prosperity, non-sexism, non-racialism and democracy.”

“You will notice that France, Germany, Russia, China are against this decision. It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America. If you look at those factors, you'll see that an individual like myself, a man who has lost power and influence, can never be a suitable mediator.”

“We consider ourselves to be comrades in arms to the Palestinian Arabs in their struggle for the liberation of Palestine. There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists.”

“I never think of the time I have lost. I just carry out a programme because it’s there. It’s mapped out for me.”

“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”

“If I am asked, by credible organizations, to mediate, I will consider that very seriously. But a situation of this nature does not need an individual, it needs an organization like the United Nations to mediate.
We must understand the seriousness of this situation. The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.”

“I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match.”

“A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.”

“In Natal, apartheid is a deadly cancer in our midst, setting house against house, and eating away at the precious ties that bound us together. This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this: take your guns, your knives, and your pangas, and throw them into the sea! Close down the death factories. End this war now!”

“May Peace be with you! We have joined you this Easter in an act of solidarity, and in an act of worship. We have come, like all the other pilgrims, to join in an act of renewal and rededication. The festival of Easter, which is so closely linked with the festival of the Passover, marks the rebirth of the resurrected Messiah, who without arms, without soldiers, without police and covert special forces, without hit squads or bands of vigilantes, overcame the mightiest state during his time. This great festival of rejoicing marks the victory of the forces of life over death, of hope over despair. We pray with you for the blessings of peace! We pray with you for the blessings of love! We pray with you for the blessings of freedom!”

“I really wanted to retire and rest and spend more time with my children, my grandchildren and of course with my wife. But the problems are such that for anybody with a conscience who can use whatever influence he may have to try to bring about peace, it's difficult to say no.”

“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.”

“The sight of wounded and whipped Zulus, mercilessly abandoned by their British persecutors, so appalled him that he turned full circle from his admiration for all things British to celebrating the indigenous and ethnic. He resuscitated the culture of the colonized and the fullness of Indian resistance against the British; he revived Indian handicrafts and made these into an economic weapon against the colonizer in his call for swadeshi — the use of one's own and the boycott of the oppressor's products, which deprive the people of their skills and their capital.”

“The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity.”