Nelson Mandela Quotes

The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Insurrection by means of guerrilla bands is the true method of warfare for all nations desirous of emancipating themselves from a foreign yoke. It is invincible, indestructible.

Wherever it is resisted, slaver dies away and freedom grows.

Let twelve good black men get armed for battle and they will kill and put to flight fifty whites.... Kill or be killed. Had you rather not be killed than be a slave to a tyrant who takes the life of your wife and children? It is no more harm to kill a man who is trying to kill you than to take a drink of water when you are thirsty.

We are very well-trained soldiers and we are armed. We will start ambushes, bombings, and even suicide bombings. We will not let the Americans rule us in such a humiliating way.

When a people consider themselves compelled by circumstances or by oppression, to appeal to arms and resort to their natural rights, they necessarily submit their cause to the great tribunal of public opinion.

…for the liberation of Ireland by force of arms

When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare.

We shall never acquiesce in the enslavement of any people in order to purchase fancied gain for ourselves.

Whenever he struck a blow for his own liberty he fought in open battle, and when at last he raised his black and humble hands that the shackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent of wrong against his helpless charges.

Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us, and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.

Our bodies are held captive, but our pursuit of freedom cannot be contained.

The Arab Spring, with all of its failings and failures, exposed the lie that if we are to live, then we must live as slaves. It was an attempt to undermine not only the orthodoxy of dictatorship but also an international political orthodoxy where every activity must be approved by the profit logic of the 'ledger.'

Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave.

... within every form of oppression lies the seeds of liberation.

I have recognized that the nation has the right, if it so wills, to vindicate her freedom even by actual violence.

Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.

Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.

Sometimes you have to fight in order to be free.

Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.

The not so simple Truth is that we must be psychologically free in order to resist and we must resist in order to be free, and all of this requires an understanding of what bondage has been, of what it continues to be and of its ramifications for the future.

A thousand men enslaved fear one beast free.

I would rather be a rebel than a slave.

My interest in India's freedom will cease if she adopts violent means, for their fruit will not be freedom but slavery in disguise.