Nelson Mandela citáty

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„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.“

“It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.”

“I hate race discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations. I have fought it all during my life; I fight it now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a black man in a white man's court. This should not be.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

“I must say that when we wanted to take up arms we approached numerous Western governments for assistance and we were never able to see any but the most junior ministers. When we visited Cuba we were received by the highest officials and were immediately offered whatever we wanted and needed. That was our earliest experience with Cuban internationalism.”

“I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.”

“Neither Bush nor Tony Blair has provided any evidence that such weapons exist. But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody talks about that. Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white. … Many people say quietly, but they don't have the courage to stand up and say publicly, that when there were white secretary generals you didn't find this question of the United States and Britain going out of the United Nations. But now that you've had black secretary generals like Boutros Boutros Ghali, like Kofi Annan, they do not respect the United Nations. They have contempt for it. This is not my view, but that is what is being said by many people.”

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”

“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings.”

“I explained to the crowd that my voice was hoarse from a cold and that my physician had advised me not to attend. "I hope that you will not disclose to him that I have violated his instructions," I told them. I congratulated Mr. de Klerk for his strong showing. I thanked all those in the ANC and the democratic movement who had worked so hard for so long. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the wife of the great freedom fighter Martin Luther King Jr., was on the podium that night, and I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband's immortal words.
"This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy--pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops — Free at last! Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you."”

“In my country we go to prison first and then become President.”

“The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.”

“The people of South Africa have spoken in these elections. They want change! And change is what they will get. Our plan is to create jobs, promote peace and reconciliation, and to guarantee freedom for all South Africans.”

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”

“When in 1977, the United Nations passed the resolution inaugurating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, it was asserting the recognition that injustice and gross human rights violations were being perpetrated in Palestine. In the same period, the UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system.”

“I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to these Palestinian and Israeli leaders. In particular, we pay homage to the memory of Yitshak Rabin who paid the supreme sacrifice in pursuit of peace.”

“Any man that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.”

“You may succeed in delaying, but never in preventing the transition of South Africa to a democracy.”

“Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.
He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.”

“No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.”

“Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.
All this we owe both to ourselves and to the peoples of the world who are so well represented here today.”

“As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.
At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralizing society in God and soul; at a time when the colonized had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed.”

“Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.”

“Now is the time for celebration, for South Africans to join together to celebrate the birth of democracy. I raise a glass to you all for working so hard to achieve what can only be called a small miracle. Let our celebrations be in keeping with the mood set in the elections, peaceful, respectful and disciplined, showing we are a people ready to assume the responsibilities of government.
I promise that I will do my best to be worthy of the faith and confidence you have placed in me and my organisation, the African National Congress. Let us build the future together, and toast a better life for all South Africans.”

“The majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organization and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy.”

“In 1980s the African National Congress was still setting the pace, being the first major political formation in South Africa to commit itself firmly to a Bill of Rights, which we published in November 1990. These milestones give concrete expression to what South Africa can become. They speak of a constitutional, democratic, political order in which, regardless of colour, gender, religion, political opinion or sexual orientation, the law will provide for the equal protection of all citizens.
They project a democracy in which the government, whomever that government may be, will be bound by a higher set of rules, embodied in a constitution, and will not be able govern the country as it pleases.”

“When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?”

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”