Ahmed Kathrada

"I learned that nonviolence is not inaction on behalf of justice."

"Do not look to a leader to tell you how to live; instead, take charge of your own life."

"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."

"The question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child; it is whether we can afford not to."

"I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you."

"There is nothing I fear more than waking up without a sense of purpose that life is well-used."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

"Commit to your dreams and support others in theirs."

"Our human compassion binds us the one to the other."

"Life is a gift, but not the whole of life's journey."

"You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop."

"What matters is not the length of our days, but the depth of our service."

"I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur."

"Real change comes from within, from personal transformation first."

"The time when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty."

"Difficulties break some men but make others."

"If we are to succeed, we must learn to work together despite our differences."

"Discipline is not punishment; it is wisdom."

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"I am fundamentally a man of peace."

"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."

"Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved by determination and hard work."

"Love is patient, love is kind; it does not envy or boast."

"The purpose of the struggle is not to defeat the enemy, but to awaken the conscience."

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always now."

"I have always believed that hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to seek it."

"Appearances matter. Conduct matters more."

"No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated."

"The struggle of my people is on my conscience."

"If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it."