Latest Kumi Naidoo Quotes from Interviews

• I've come across a lot of people in my life who talk about poverty and talk about the poor, but you rarely have a sense that it matters to them to the point at which they will be willing to sacrifice something.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Sacrifice, People, Matter

  Source: anniepaul.net

• Many people theorize poverty, but so many elements of poverty, individually, for most people who theorize about poverty would be really difficult to even comprehend the individual things. Just take homelessness. If you are homeless, what does it mean not to have a post box where people can contact you; what does it mean not knowing where you're going to sleep at the end of the day; what does it mean not having a place where you can store what little you might possess. So dealing with homelessness in itself is a huge thing for most people who are commentators [on] or benefactors to poverty.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Mean, Sleep, Knowing

  Source: anniepaul.net

• I first met Nelson Mandela when I was in my late 20s, in 1993. I was helping facilitate an African National Congress (ANC) workshop to plan its media strategy. I went down to meet him for the first time and you know me I got stupid... I just choked. I said, "Hello Madiba, it's a real honour to meet you," and I couldn't get another word out.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Stupid, Real, Media

  Source: anniepaul.net

• One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Queens, Kings, Eye

  Source: anniepaul.net

• Nelson Mandela was just a human being, a person like other people, and everyone relaxed. Within a minute, that sort of thing about the leader and the lead, the gap was closed, and that's a rare thing.

  Kumi Naidoo

  People, Leader, Gaps

  Source: anniepaul.net

• Nelson Mandela also spoke about how, as a human being, he's made mistakes.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Mistake, Made, Spokes

  Source: anniepaul.net

• Nelson's Mandela own sense of himself was a very humble reading, [different] from how the world read him. And, quite often, you had the sense that he was not comfortable with all the accolades that would be.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Reading, Humble, Different

  Source: anniepaul.net

• Nelson Mandela once said "I can't help it if the ladies take note of me; I'm not going to protest."

  Kumi Naidoo

  Helping, Said, Notes

  Source: anniepaul.net

• Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."

  Kumi Naidoo

  Mean, Trying, Saint

  Source: anniepaul.net

• I think even though he [Nelson Mandela] was feted and praised as he was, he always was at pains to say, I'm a human being.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Pain, Thinking, Humans

  Source: anniepaul.net

• [Nelson] Mandela was very keen not to be understood as an exceptional person.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Exceptional, Understood, Persons

  Source: anniepaul.net

• The reality is today most of our political leaders want to be treated as gods and semi-gods, from the security details to the fuss around them and so on.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Reality, Leader, Political

  Source: anniepaul.net

• In Durban, where I was born and grew up, and all over Africa, Nelson Mandela was a hero! Now he is a hero to the world.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Hero, Durban, World

  Source: anniepaul.net

• I was 15 years old when I first heard the name Mandela, or Madiba, as he is fondly known in Africa. In apartheid South Africa he was public enemy number one. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and rumour, the media called him 'The Black Pimpernel'.

  Kumi Naidoo

  Years, Names, Numbers

  Source: anniepaul.net