Nelson Mandela: Gone

One of the truly great has gone.

I was listening to Bruckner’s 7th Symphony when the news arrived. It suits my mood.

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”

Update

“Mandela understood the power of sport to provide dignity and hope in the face of state-sponsored oppression, to undermine discrimination with resistance and to heal and to help unite a society that the racial segregation of apartheid had brutally divided.”

“Sport has the power to change the world,” Mandela, who died Thursday, was often quoted as saying. “It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”  NY Times, Sports

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Wikipedia

BBC

Al Jazeera

NY Times