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Albie Sachs
Constitutional Court of South Africa
It wasn't just a question of who was stronger physically, who could mess up and hurt the other side the most effectively to extract information. It was what we stood for, and the ANC, as an organization, took a very, very firm position that we put people on trial. We don't have indefinite detention without a trial, whatever the suspicions might be, and we don't use torture -- sleep deprivation, water boarding, suffocating people, physical abuse. We just don't use that, because that's not the kind of people we are. And I mention this with some emphasis, because it meant, when eventually it came to writing the South African constitution, we didn't need any persuading about the importance of fundamental rights. We had applied the theme of fundamental rights to our enemies in circumstances where conditions were often desperate for us. It was part of our integrity, and our personality, and that dream and sense of idealism that made us a liberation movement, and not just another group of people fighting for power, to dislodge one group and replace them with another group.
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Albie Sachs
Constitutional Court of South Africa
Albie Sachs: When I was young, I learned to dream. I learned to imagine doing impossible things. I learned to feel that we have just one life that can be very rich. It can be very special, it's really up to us. I don't think that's changed really. The details, the formatting of it, the experiences have changed. I've had to rethink a lot of things about happiness. I thought you would just be happy, and then -- personal happiness -- you'd meet the right person, you fall in love and you just become happy. I thought that everybody who had money would be happy. Poor people are unhappy 'cause they're short of bread and they can't go to school and so on. I discovered rich people are unhappy. I discovered you could meet someone you loved very much, you'd been through a lot together, but somehow you weren't happy together. Life in that sense is a much richer, more nuanced experience, in many ways much more wonderful because it's not automatic.
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Fritz Scholder
Native American Artist
I truly believe the artist must be an intellectual. Painting is a renaissance activity. In a way, it shouldn't even be happening, and yet I say that tongue in cheek. Painting today is probably even more important than ever before, but the artist really must have something to say, about whatever subject, because every subject is a cliché. We all are so sophisticated, and especially visually. We've seen thousands of apples, or women, or cats, or dogs, and so the challenge to the painter is great to still come up with something different. And yet, it's more than just an intellectual or aesthetic kind of game. It goes right to the core. Because the two things that every society has had from the beginning is, of course, religion and art.
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