Back to Africa Check

Man with vision, or man with a television? Relationship advice not by Nelson Mandela

On social media it’s easy to make up a quote and claim it was said by someone famous. Fake quotes often pass unquestioned, with the more interesting ones shared widely.

A Facebook page with more than 360,000 followers recently posted a quote it claimed was by South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and former president Nelson Mandela.

“When a woman rejects a man of vision, and accept [sic] a man with television, she will end up watching the man of vision on her own husband's television,” it reads.

“Don't judge a man by his pocket but judge him by his vision. Because where a man is going in life is more important than his present condition.”

Mandela coins adverts


It was published on a page called Nelson Mandela Quotes, which mainly posts ads for Mandela coins.

The post has attracted nearly 2,000 comments and over 62,000 shares. A similar quote posted as a meme has been shared more than 6,000 times on Facebook.



Quote ‘not an authentic Nelson Mandela quote’


Africa Check contacted Nelson Mandela Foundation, a non-profit organisation Mandela founded after stepping down as president of South Africa, which maintains an archive of his life and work.

Sahm Venter, a senior researcher at the foundation, told us it was not by him.

“I can safely say that this quotation or any part of it is not an authentic Nelson Mandela quote,” she said.

“The regular use of incorrect quotes which people often find on the internet and elsewhere, and then just use without checking their authenticity, is one of the reasons why in 2011 we published the book Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations.

“We are presently finalising a database of authentic quotations which will be available on our website www.nelsonmandela.org.”

Venter said the foundation encouraged people to contact them to query quotes or other information attributed to Mandela. – Dancan Bwire (02/05/19)




 

Republish our content for free

Please complete this form to receive the HTML sharing code.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.