Nelson Mandela Quotes

Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.

I mean, what is prison, really, except a good bar without the liquor?

Prison is not a mere physical horror. It is using a pickaxe to no purpose that makes a prison.

To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.

When you're in prison, and we're left to our own devices, you're stripped of everything, and you really get to see who these people are, the good and the bad.

Being in jail is difficult too because it's like being in a graveyard, you can't do much.

It's [Jail's] like being at school. Except you can't leave.

Those who have nothing have only their discipline.

In durance vile 1here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.

Are there other people who, when watching a documentary set in a prison, secretly think, as I have, 'Wish I had all that time to read'?

There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity.

There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.

Bear the Cross cheerfully and it will bear you.

Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Be patient, my soul: thou hath suffered worse than this.

I shot a couple of movies in jail, but I was never in jail.

The closest thing to hell on earth is prison. It's the worst experience I've ever had in my life. Besides death.

Prolonged endurance tames the bold.

Going to prison is like dying with your eyes open.

I've sat through boring speeches; didn't get up and leave.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'

Bear and endure: This sorrow will one day prove to be for your good.

I did get to Beersheba [in Israel], but only to prison there. It was actually very nice, with television and free international calls. I would recommend it even over many hotels I have known. It was a shame to leave.