Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our
Light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that the other people won’t
feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the Glory
of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in
everyone. And as we let our Light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own
fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
- Nelson Mandela : 1994 Inaugural
Speech ?
The
e-mail below sent to me regarding the above quote and its attribution:
...I
thought you might be interested in knowing where it really came from.
It is widely misattributed on the Web and elsewhere to Nelson Mandela's
1994 inaugural address. A quick search through that very speech (also
full of splendid quotable prose) on the ANC's official web site confirms
that
the quotation isn't there (URL below). Nor is it to be found in any
of his other published speeches.
The
actual author of the quotation is Marianne Williamson. To be precise,
it is from her 1992 book, "Return to Love" (hardcover p. 165, paperback
pp. 190-191):
http://www.marianne.com/index.php
Just
to be extra sure that Mandela never quoted it in another speech, I wrote
to the ANC (info@anc.org.za) asking about it, and their representative
Duncan Harford confirmed my suspicions:
---
begin include message ---
From:
"dharford" ANC
Subject:
Re: Our Deepest Fear
Date:
Tue, 20 Aug 2002 07:47:57 +0200
Hello
John
We
are aware that these words have for some years now been attributed to Nelson
Mandela on the internet. We do not know how this happened.
These
words appear neither in the May 9, 1994 inaugural speech
(http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1994/inaugct.html),
nor
the May 10, 1994 inaugural speech
(http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1994/inaugpta.html),
nor
any of the other speeches, statements and writings by Mr. Mandela
(http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/).
Regards
Duncan
---
end included message ---
Thanks
for your attention,
John
--
John Finlayson