The world is honored and made a better place by your presence among us and by the lessons and leadership you have provided throughout a life of courage and character.
I am grateful that despite all the horrors of apartheid, all the violence that was done, your life was preserved because that life has been a gift to all life on earth.
You are the role model most needed in a world where too many people rush to destroy anyone they have decided to call an enemy. You are a mensch.
Here, in the 100thpost of this blog, I want to share with all of our readers, some of your enduring words of truth, justice, wisdom, and empathy:
“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.”
“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. ”
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. ”
“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. ”
Dear Readers, if you want to see a wonderful movie that says a lot about the kind of man Nelson Mandela is, see the film Invictus and enjoy this fine poem by William Ernest Henley:
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
(Poem in public domain)
