Quote by Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible until it's done.”

Every major achievement looks unreachable before it happens. That feeling of impossibility is not a reliable guide to what is actually possible — it is just a feature of looking at something that hasn't happened yet. The proof of what is possible is always after the fact.

Mandela delivered this as part of a 2003 address. At the time, South Africa was a decade into its democratic experiment and grappling with the enormous challenges of building equity after apartheid. The line reflected his lifelong view that collective determination could overcome what individually seemed insurmountable.

South African anti-apartheid activist and the country's first democratically elected president, serving from 1994 to 1999 after spending twenty-seven years imprisoned on Robben Island. His autobiography Long Walk to Freedom describes his journey from activist to statesman.