Nelson Mandela Quotes

I do not believe in a political strategy that does not have a moral foundation.

Give us a clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for—because unless we stand for something we will fall for anything.

My future is righteousness.

What's missing from the world is a sense of direction.

The personal mission statement was important for me because I believe that you can't lead others unless you have a strong sense of who you are and what you stand for.

Leadership is about having principles. A leader must have a vision and principles that will endure for all time and must always be true to these principles, applying them to changing circumstances

Place principle above all else.

Principles are the territory. Values are maps.

Leadership consists of character and strategy. If you can't have both, opt for character.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

Integrity is the core of our character. Without integrity, we have a weak foundation upon which to build other Christlike characteristics.

Life is essentially a question of values.

Conventionality is not morality.

Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.

If the end does not justify the means - what can?

Clients say, 'What's your strategy,' and I say, 'Ask me what I believe first.' That's a far more enduring answer.

Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. 'How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?'

The fundamental basis of ethics must be chosen in some non-scientific way.

Base thy life on principle, not on rules.

It is not true that people of high principle are ill-suited for politics.

Leadership means setting a moral tone.

I've always felt that I was from the future because the future is really not about what you make but what you stand for.