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For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains,
by Nelson Mandela

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains,
but to live in a way that respects
and enhances the freedom of others.
- Nelson Mandela

Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Government Political Diversity Acceptance

Quotes by Nelson Mandela

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had
because they didn't have the talent
or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
- Nelson Mandela

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
- Nelson Mandela

After climbing a great hill,
one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
- Nelson Mandela

It is better to lead from behind
and to put others in front,
especially when you celebrate victory
when nice things occur.
You take the front line when there is danger.
Then people will appreciate your leadership.
- Nelson Mandela

There is no such thing as part freedom.
- Nelson Mandela

Let freedom reign. The sun never set
on so glorious a human achievement.
- Nelson Mandela

Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can use to change the world.
- Nelson Mandela

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul
than the way in which it treats its children.
- Nelson Mandela

A good head and a good heart
are always a formidable combination.
- Nelson Mandela

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere,
and many of us will have to pass
through the valley of the shadow of death
again and again before we reach
the mountaintop of our desires.
- Nelson Mandela

If you want to make peace with your enemy,
you have to work with your enemy.
Then he becomes your partner.
- Nelson Mandela

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged
to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
- Nelson Mandela

It always seems impossible until its done.
- Nelson Mandela

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing,
whether it comes from a black man or a white man.
- Nelson Mandela

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
- Nelson Mandela

When the water starts boiling
it is foolish to turn off the heat.
- Nelson Mandela

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.
- Nelson Mandela

Money won't create success,
the freedom to make it will.
- Nelson Mandela

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa,
there are also roads that lead to their goal.
Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.
- Nelson Mandela

In my country we go to prison first, and then become President.
- Nelson Mandela

Never, never and never again shall it be
that this beautiful land will again experience
the oppression of one by another.
- Nelson Mandela

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections,
they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia.
But when we have elections, they want observers.
- Nelson Mandela

Only free men can negotiate;
prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
- Nelson Mandela

We must use time wisely and forever realize
that the time is always ripe to do right.
- Nelson Mandela

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

If you talk to a man in a language he understands,
that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language,
that goes to his heart.
- Nelson Mandela

There is no passion to be found playing small -
in settling for a life that is less
than the one you are capable of living.
- Nelson Mandela

As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Nelson Mandela

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa,
whereby its leaders combine in their efforts
to solve the problems of this continent.
I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests,
of all our great wildernesses.
- Nelson Mandela

Communists have always played an active role
in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom,
because the short-term objects of Communism
would always correspond with
the long-term objects of freedom movements.
- Nelson Mandela

Free Quotes and Sayings

Free-Will is the key to the prison of the mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business
that allows us to experience the present,
free of contamination from the past.
- Joan Borysenko

I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free
and there was nothing to break the light of the sun.
I was born where there were no enclosures.
- Geronimo

We are free only if we face the challenge of freedom,
do the work of freedom, fight the fight of freedom
and die the death for freedom.
- Charles G. Adams

Lives based on having are less free
than lives based on doing or being.
- E.Y. Harburg

No one is free who is not master of himself.
- Epictetus

Make a conscious choice to live
a serene and stress-free life.
Stress is always waiting just outside your door
like a vicious wild-dog.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We disrespect ourselves and our free-will
whenever we say that we NEED to do something.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The freedom we are looking for
is the freedom to be ourselves,
to express ourselves. But if we look at our lives
we will see that most of the time
we do things just to please others ...
The worst part is that most of us
are not even aware that we are not free.
- Don Miguel Ruiz

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.
- Chinese Proverb

Always question WHY you are doing something.
Is it a free-will gift or an obligation?
That which is done out of a feeling of obligation
is unworkable as a substitute for a gift.
Obligation creates a feeling of resentment on your part,
and evokes resentment rather than gratitude
on the part of the recipient.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature and its beauty.
- Albert Einstein

The best things in life are free.
- Anonymous

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
- Aristotle

The really great secret - Happiness is free.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today, walking the beach, I was reminded of the bounty
of the earth in the form of wild blackberries -
a free feast, with no one else bothering to partake.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

From the way most people live,
one would never guess that humans are beings of free will.
Repetition can be a choice, but often it isn't.
The athlete or pianist who practices the same routine
day after day, year after year, has their eye on a goal.
The unending repetition is a conscious choice
in the pursuit of a life dream.
But what about the sameness of most lives?
Observe the morning commute, the after-work drink,
the Sunday football game or religious service -
how many of those people are consciously following their dream,
training their mind, body, and spirit through that daily repetition?
And how many are mindlessly slogging through each day
out of habit and boredom?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Fly Life on Free Wings, and Sing to its Glory.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend
reality by imagination, as I try to do.
- Anais Nin

A loving relationship is one in which
the loved one is free to be himself -
to laugh with me, but never at me;
to cry with me, but never because of me;
to love life, to love himself,
to love being loved.
Such a relationship is based upon freedom
and can never grow in a jealous heart.
- Leo F. Buscaglia

Knowledge of the Truth makes us free
by aligning us with that which was never bound.
- Ernest Holmes

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
- written on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor

We are not to give credit to the many,
who say that none ought to be educated but the free;
but rather to the philosophers,
who say that the well-educated alone are free.
- Epictetus

Anyone is free who lives as he wishes to live.
- Epictetus

Give your time and efforts freely or not at all.
When you are tempted to say,
"Oh, if I have to, I'll skip my golf game
and watch my daughter play soccer," don't do it.
Either generate the heart-felt emotion
to make the free-will gift,
"I'd love to watch your game today, Sandy,"
or the honesty to decline the request gracefully.
Martyrdom doesn't create happiness
for any of the parties involved.
An honest, "No" is preferable to a coerced "Yes."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We must be free not because we claim freedom,
but because we practice it.
- William Faulkner

During his training, a baseball player strives
to make each swing better than the last.
The repetition of a faulty swing would be worse than useless.
It would ingrain bad habits.
The same is true of emotional responses.
If we allow ourselves to continue to have the same angry responses,
we just entrench our anger habit.
But if we strive - through consciousness, visualization, and coaching -
to moderate our anger response,
over time, we can train ourselves to respond
to events as we choose - without anger.
You can't magically be free from anger tomorrow,
but you can put yourself on your own training program
that will reduce the frequency and intensity
of your anger response day by day, year by year.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.
- Ram Dass

The history of free men is never really written by chance
but by choice; their choice!
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- Thomas Jefferson

When one has the feeling of dislike for evil,
when one feels tranquil,
one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings;
when one has these feelings and appreciates them,
one is free of fear.
- The Buddha

The law will never make a man free;
it is men who have got to make the law free.
- Henry David Thoreau

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.
- Epictetus

Freedom is not worth having if it
does not connote freedom to err.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,
it cannot save the few who are rich.
- John F. Kennedy

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so,
a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
- Thomas Jefferson

If physical death is the price
that I must pay to free my brothers and sisters
from a permanent death of the spirit,
then nothing can be more redemptive.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I am free of prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
- W. C. Fields

A person experiences life as
something separated from the rest -
a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.
Our task must be to free ourselves
from this self-imposed prison,
and through compassion,
to find the reality of Oneness.
- Albert Einstein

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie