Quotes about Freedom

I was the symbol of justice in the court of the oppressor, the representative of the great ideals of freedom.

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.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

And when we did come out [of prison], my children said, "We thought we had a father and one day he'd come back. But to our dismay, our father came back and he left us alone because he has now become the father of the nation.

Let freedom reign.

His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life.

In confidence we lay our cause before the whole world. Whether we win or whether we die, freedom will rise in Africa like the sun from the morning clouds.

The struggle is my life.

Een mens die een ander mens van zijn vrijheid berooft, is een gevangene van de haat, opgesloten achter de tralies van vooroordelen en kleingeestigheid.

It is not my ambition to marry a white woman or swim in a white pool. It is political equality that we want.

I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.

They reminded us that the freedom struggle was not merely a question of making speeches, holding meetings, passing resolutions, and sending deputations, but of meticulous organization, militant action, and, above all, the willingness to suffer and sacrifice.