We owe our children β the most vulnerable citizens in any society β a life free from violence and fear.
Nelson MandelaRead
Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.
Interpretation
Overcoming poverty is essential for fairness and justice in society, not just an act of kindness.
Nelson Mandela emphasizes that overcoming poverty should not be viewed merely as an act of charity, but rather as a fundamental aspect of justice. This perspective highlights the need for systemic change to address the root causes of poverty and ensure that every individual has the right to an equitable life free from deprivation.
In practice
During a speech about social reform, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of addressing economic inequalities.
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.
And so I would not enforce a law that would reject people and turn them away without giving them a fair and due process to determine if we should give them asylum and refuge.
The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice. The scrutiny of 12 honest jurors provides defendants and plaintiffs alike a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.
Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
If I were attorney general in Kansas in 1953, I would not have defended a Kansas statute that put in place separate-but-equal facilities.
Once you've acquired a criminal record, you can be discriminated against legally in employment, housing, and access to education and public benefits. You're relegated to a permanent second-class status, forever a 'criminal.' Inflicting this amount of unnecessary pain and suffering is not cheap.
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