Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Foto: Felix Dlangamandla


Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, veteran anti-apartheid activist and former wife to the late Nelson Mandela, died on Monday. She was 81.

See also: How publications around the world covered the death of 'Mother of the Nation' Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Here are some of the quotes she will be remembered for.

"To those who oppose us, we say, 'Strike the woman, and you strike the rock'."
– 1966

Winnie Mandela marches with a crowd of youths in the Brandfort Township (Getty)

"Together, hand in hand, with our matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country."
– 1986

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Foto: Felix Dlangamandla

"I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy."
– 1996

Winnie Mandela and Caster Semenya talk to press during the Team SA Press Conference at the Holiday Inn on August 25, 2009 in Johannesburg. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo ImagesGetty Images)

"I will not allow the selfless efforts of my husband and his friends to be abandoned. I will continue the struggle for a free and equal South Africa."
– 1962

"They think because they have put my husband on an island that he will be forgotten. They are wrong. The harder they try to silence him, the louder I will become!"
– 1962

Winnie Mandela with US Senator Edward Kennedy, while she was in exile in Brandfort in the Free State. (Photo by Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images)

"There is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn't any pain I haven't known."
– 1987

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

"All what we fought for is not what is going on right now. It is a tragedy that he lived and saw what was happening, we cannot pretend like South Africa is not in crisis, our country is in crisis and anyone who cannot see that is just bluffing themselves."
– 2017

Little Steven, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Anita Baker, Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, Winnie Mandela, Peter Gabriel, Mica Paris, Lou Reed, Jim Kerr and Denzel Washington attend backstage a concert held at Wembley Stadium to celebrate the release of African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela from prison on April 16, 1990 in London, England. (Photo by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images)

"It is only when all black groups, join hands and speak with one voice that we shall be a bargaining force which will decide its own destiny."
– 1976

Winnie Mandela with her grandson, 1986. (Photo by David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

"If you are to free yourselves you must break the chains of oppression yourselves. Only then can we express our dignity, only when we have liberated ourselves can we co-operate with other groups. Any acceptance of humiliation, indignity or insult is acceptance of inferiority."
– 1976

Receive a single WhatsApp message every morning with all our latest news: Sign up here.