Ahmed Kathrada Quotes: Nelson Mandela's Ally, Anti-Apartheid Activist, Dead At 87

Nelson Mandela's ally and veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada died Tuesday after several complications during a brain surgery, according to the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. It confirmed the news of his death early Tuesday morning and said he died at the Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg.

"This is great loss to the ANC, the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole. Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle. Kathy was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world," Neeshan Balton, head of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation told the Guardian.

Kathrada was jailed along with Nelson Mandela and seven other African National Congress (ANC) activists, including Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki, in the Rivona trial in 1964, which highlighted the unfair legal system under the apartheid regime of South Africa. He spent 26 years and three months behind bars. Eighteen out of these were spent at Robben Island. He served as the parliamentary counselor to then President Nelson Mandela from 1994-99 in the first ever ANC government after the abolition of apartheid.

He will be remembered through some of his notable quotes that appropriately portray how determined he was toward his struggle:

1. "In death, you once more challenge people from every strata, religion, and position to think about how their own actions do and can change the world for better or worse."

2. "While we will not forget the brutality of apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument of our hardship and suffering. We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil; a triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness; a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness; a triumph of the new South Africa over the old."

3. "Hatred, revenge, bitterness - these are negative emotions. The person harboring those emotions suffers more."

4. "In terms of deprivation, the worst deprivation was the lack of children on the island... I saw a child, and touched a child, after 20 years. So it was the worst deprivation, absence of children. But you couldn’t escape, you had to accept the fact that you are a prisoner."

5. "I know that if I were in the president’s shoes, I would step down with immediate effect. I believe that is what would help the country to find its way out of a path that it never imagined it would be on, but one that it must move out of soon."

6. "In 1989 – we were being transferred to a prison in Johannesburg – and the guard came and said we have just received a fax from headquarters that you are going to be released tomorrow – just like that. What was our reaction? [We asked] ‘what is a fax?’ We didn’t know what a fax was. At that time, we had seen this thing on television, but how do you conceptualize it? And then you get out of prison and you see ATM machines and you see all sorts of things like computers, and the whole system is different."

7. "We have been blessed that under the collective leadership of the ANC we can proudly proclaim that ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white’. We were mightily, and unexpectedly, blessed when the old, oppressive, undemocratic order succumbed and bowed to the inevitable. And then finally, we were truly blessed by the far-sighted wisdom of our collective leadership – with Madiba at the helm – that took us into a democratic future. For all of this and much more, we are deeply grateful."

8. "Nelson Mandela had annoying habits [in jail] – stationary running. It was noisy and annoying because it started at 4am or 4.30am in the morning!"

9. "We don’t hold it against people who broke down under torture. I don’t know what I would have done under torture. I can never say. As brave as I can talk today, I can’t guarantee it. I’d say with the vast majority of people very few weakened and did something that they should not have done, but by and large people stuck to their principles."

10. "Sisulu and myself loved Whitney Houston. We recorded every song. I wrote a letter to my friend telling him how we were spending our time and that letter reached Whitney Houston. A letter came back, signed, with her photo! Not to me; to Walter Sisulu."