We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life.

I was first imprisoned in Pretoria, and then, thereafter, I was taken to Robben Island. I stayed there for a couple of weeks. I was taken back to Pretoria when I was charged in the Rivonia trial, when I was then sent to Robben Island for life.

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. 

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

Love is a better teacher than duty. 

Nobody can make it to the present or the future by clinging to their past.

Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.

I have always been of opinion that all the political workers should be indifferent and should never bother about the legal fight in the law courts and should boldly bear the heaviest possible sentences inflicted upon them. They may defend themselves but always from purely political considerations and never from a personal point of view.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

We found ourselves in a soup, when the waiter spilled the soup we ordered, on us!

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixteen were compelled to carry 'Native passes' issued by the Native Affairs Department and were required to show that pass to any white policeman, civil servant, or employer. Failure to do so could mean arrest, trial, a jail sentence or fine.