After years of imprisonment, physical and emotional abuse, and separation from his family, Mandela said, "I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. They could not take those things. Those things I still had control over. And I decided not to give them away." So Mandela's story is really the story of those two things he never gave away: his brilliant mind, and his great heart.

Prison was a kind of crucible which tested a man's character. Some men, under pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.

The struggle is my life.

It always seems impossible until it's done

It's always too early to quit.

It's always to soon to quit!

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

Never feel shame for trying and failing, for he who never failed is he who never tried.

Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don't look back at it too long. Mistakes are life's way of teaching you. Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals. No one wins them all, and your failures, when they happen, are just part of your growth. Shake off your blunders. How will you know your limits without an occasional failure? Never quit. Your turn will come.

Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.

Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand.