We owe our children β the most vulnerable citizens in any society β a life free from violence and fear.
Nelson MandelaRead
The curious beauty of African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad tale. You may be poor, you may have only a ramshackle house, you may have lost your job, but that song gives you hope.
Interpretation
What this quote means
African music has a unique ability to inspire hope despite depicting sadness or hardship.
This quote by Nelson Mandela highlights the profound impact of African music, which, while often narrating tales of struggle and sorrow, simultaneously instills a sense of hope and beauty in its listeners. It suggests that music can transcend difficult circumstances, offering solace and uplifting the human spirit even in times of despair.
Themes
African MusicHopeSad TaleBeautyUplifting
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech at a cultural festival, one might quote Mandela to illustrate the resilience of the human spirit through music.
More from Nelson Mandela
All quotes βWhat freedom am I being offered while the organization of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.
Nelson MandelaRead
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.
Nelson MandelaRead
We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.
Nelson MandelaRead
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.
Nelson MandelaRead
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 MandelaRead
Similar quotes
I love the relationship that anyone has with music ... because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. ... It's the best part of us probably.
Nick HornbyRead
No, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they 'should' like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle.
Terry TeachoutRead
The blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits.
Willie DixonRead
The major rock instruments and classical instruments were designed for performance, for sharing the music with an audience, and then later people put microphones on them and recorded them. But for electronic music, the opposite was true - they're designed in laboratories, and later, we tried to put them on stage.
Jean Michel JarreRead
The cutthroat avenues of rock 'n' roll, I am fed up with. I don't want anything to do with it.
Neil YoungRead
Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
Herbie HancockRead