What does it mean?
Speaking a shared language helps people understand your ideas, but speaking someone's own language shows respect and wins their trust and warmth.
Who said it?
Nelson Mandela: South African president and anti-apartheid leader (1918–2013).
These exact words are widely credited to Nelson Mandela, but they don’t appear in their known work. They may be a later paraphrase or a misattribution.
More quotes by Nelson Mandela
All 5- “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”– Nelson Mandela
- “It always seems impossible until it's done.”– Often attributed to Nelson Mandela
- “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”– Nelson Mandela
- “A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”– Nelson Mandela