Nelson Mandela

1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid revolutionary & first President of democratic South Africa

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) led the armed and political wings of the African National Congress, spent 27 years in prison, and became South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994. His solidarity with the Palestinian cause is genuine and documented — he called Yasser Arafat a comrade in arms and told a 1997 UN solidarity gathering that South African freedom was “incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” But in the speeches preserved in his official archive, his language on the subject is that of a negotiator: in 1993 he told the South African Jewish Board of Deputies that the ANC recognised both Palestinian nationalism and Zionism as Jewish nationalism, and insisted on Israel’s right to exist within secure borders.

Traced to source

6 quotes we’ve traced to Nelson Mandela

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”

Verified

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it”

Verified

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love”

Verified

“Collapsing any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or long-range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in exams by students. The collapse of education is the collapse of the nation”

Disputed

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies”

Disputed

“There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists”

Disputed

Not actually Nelson Mandela

Often misattributed to Nelson Mandela

Famous lines widely pinned on Nelson Mandela that we’ve traced to someone else.

“Collapsing any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or long-range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in exams by students. The collapse of education is the collapse of the nation”

actually Unknown — an anonymous circulating text

“It always seems impossible until it's done”

actually No single author — a proverb Mandela never sourced

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us”

actually Marianne Williamson

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies”

actually Unknown — a modern recovery-era proverb

“There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists”

actually Unknown

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right”

actually Martin Luther King Jr.

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