Nelson Mandela Quotes

There is a crying need today to have this truth heralded throughout the land that youth especially may appreciate and hold the freedom of the individual as sacred as did our revolutionary fathers.

Wherever there is repression of the individual, wherever there are acts contrary to the nature of the individual, there can be no greater crime.

The principle of self-government cannot be violated with impunity. The individual's right to it is sacred - regardless of class, caste, race, color, sex or any other accident or incident of birth.

Individual freedoms are the primary engine by which the pursuit of happiness can be maximally instantiated.

No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

I should like to be remembered as the man who raised a voice against... placing limitations on the freedom of the individual.

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

I believe in trying to get a balance between individual freedom on the one hand and social responsibility on the other.

I believe, basically, that individual freedom is very important.

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

In a world of democracies, in a world where the great projects that have set humanity on fire are the projects of the emancipation of individuals from entrenched social division and hierarchy; in such a world individuals must never be puppets or prisoners of the societies or cultures into which they have been born.

The only way of living in a free society is to feel that you have the right to say and do stuff.

To talk about liberty and freedom is nice, lovely, but the important thing is to allow people to act in liberty and freedom.

Our job is to make people free.

The greatness of this country lies in how every single person can exercise their right to be himself or herself.

One of the main reasons I came back to Mexico is because I've found freedom and democracy here, something I never found in the United States.

We are as great as our belief in human liberty—no greater.

Whatever objection there is to so called violation of personal liberty, it does not count when the supremacy of the law and the stability of our intuitions are menaced.

True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded.

… by a free country I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbors, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. That is not my notion of freedom.

What is life without liberty; and what is liberty without equality of rights?

Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.

Freedom possesses many meanings. It speaks not merely in terms of political and religious liberty but also in terms of economic and social progress.

The most desirable state of mankind is that which maintains general security with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence.

It is essential that the young people of this country learn to respect the right of every man and woman to seek his or her happiness with minimal interference from the government.