Nelson Mandela Quotes

We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.

We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.

Healing cannot be done by settling a score.

War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.

Too often, we think that, when we have a problem with our lives or our country, that the way to fix it is to take an eye for an eye. That doesn't help anything or anyone.

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

I find that if I pray for the people I'm most angry with, my anger turns into something more redemptive.

A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.

What antidote can there be for an idea that popular and poisonous? Revenge provides revenge, which is sure to provide revenge, forming an endless chain of human misery. Here's the antidote: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen.

You have to be able to say, OK, that happened back then. Now let's take it from here and see what happens. It would be very easy to hate people for the rest of your life, and some people have done that. You've got to deal with what's happening now and try to make things better.

Justice is not Healing. Healing cometh only by suffering and patience, and maketh no demand, not even for Justice. Justice worketh only within the bonds of things as they are... and therefore though Justice is itself good and desireth no further evil, it can but perpetuate the evil that was, and doth not prevent it from the bearing of fruit in sorrow.

Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness.

The passion for revenge should never blind you to the pragmatics of the situation. There are some people who are so blighted by their past, so warped by experience and the pull of that silken cord, that they never free themselves of the shadows that live in the time machine... And if there is a kind thought due them, it may be found contained in the words of the late Gerald Kersh, who wrote:"... there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.

By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior.

Ours is a nation that does not seek revenge.

I don't think vengeance is much good.

Isn't it easier to forgive than to hate? Until we learn how to forgive, that sort of thing is going to keep on happening." He pointed at the tall pillars of smoke rising to the north. "Hate is a sterile thing, Belgarion.

I just hugged the man that murdered my son.

We do not celebrate the death of our enemies.

Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel.

Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.

I was filled with hate and anger. But during my trial, something decisive happened: Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and it was an unbelievable feeling to know that there is someone fighting for you on the outside. Amnesty's 'soft' approach made me seriously consider alternatives to revenge.

Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.

To me, I think justice is part of forgiving, if it is well done with love.

Some may seek revenge, but this is not our policy.