We owe our children β the most vulnerable citizens in any society β a life free from violence and fear.
Nelson MandelaRead
Love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Interpretation
Love is a fundamental and instinctive emotion that humans often express more freely than hate or negativity.
In this quote, Nelson Mandela emphasizes the intrinsic nature of love within humanity. He suggests that love is a natural inclination of the human heart, implying that it is easier for people to give and receive love compared to harboring feelings of hatred or animosity, which come less naturally and require conscious effort.
In practice
In a speech about community building, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of promoting love over hate.
We owe our children β the most vulnerable citizens in any society β a life free from violence and fear.
What freedom am I being offered while the organization of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.
The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future, but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good, and leave behind what is bad.
We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.
After one has been in prison, it is the small things that one appreciates: being able to take a walk whenever one wants, going into a shop and buying a newspaper, speaking or choosing to remain silent. The simple act of being able to control one's person.
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.
I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.
Is there a word more passionate than passion? Obsession, total immersion, the feeling that everything else doesn't matter.
God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.
Love is a light that shines from heart to heart.
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.
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