“These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency.”
1990s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1993)
Context: I am also here today as a representative of the millions of people across the globe, the anti-apartheid movement, the governments and organisations that joined with us, not to fight against South Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against humanity.
These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency.
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Nelson Mandela143
President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist 1918–2013Related quotes
Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic
Quoted in: Richard Roud, Godard, introduction (1967, repr. 1970).
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 15.
Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society
Furchtbares hat die Menschheit sich antun müssen, bis das Selbst, der identische, zweckgerichtete, männliche Charakter des Menschen geschaffen war, und etwas davon wird noch in jeder Kindheit wiederholt.
E. Jephcott, trans., p. 26
Dialektik der Aufklärung [Dialectic of Enlightenment] (1944)
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright
V. D. Savarkar, quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 3; Variant translation: Never do any enemy a small injury for they are like a snake which is half beaten and it will strike back the first chance it gets.
“Travertine and all stone of that class can stand injury”
Vitruvius book De architectura
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter VII, Sec. 2
Context: Travertine and all stone of that class can stand injury whether from a heavy load laid upon it or from the weather; exposure to fire, however, it cannot bear, but splits and cracks to pieces at once. This is because in its natural composition there is but little moisture and not much of the earthy, but a great deal of air and of fire. Therefore, it is not only without the earthy and watery elements, but when fire, expelling the air from it by the operation and force of heat, penetrates into its inmost parts and occupies the empty spaces of the fissures there comes a great glow and the stone is made to burn as fiercely as do the particles of fire itself.
Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic
Book 2, Chapter 2 “In Which Old Acquaintances Are Resumed and New Agreements Reached” (p. 226)
The Elric Cycle, The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
“Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.”
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
Source: (1932), p.25
Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer
Source: Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals