"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."
— Nelson Mandela
I Learned That Courage Was Not
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.
About this quote
From Long Walk to Freedom (1994), the autobiography Nelson Mandela began writing in secret on Robben Island in 1976, smuggling the manuscript out in instalments. The book was published in December 1994, the same year he was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected president. The reflection on courage and fear draws directly on his experience of choosing to confront the apartheid government despite the very real possibility of a death sentence — as nearly happened at the Rivonia Trial in 1964.
Source
Long Walk to Freedom, 1994
