I have heard that this quote has been widely misattributed to Marianne Williamson and is in fact a quote by Nelson Mandela. I originally set out to find which of Nelson Mandela’s speeches included this quote, since all references I had seen only cited Mandela’s name, but not a specific speech or other resource. Due to the potential lack of credibility of information on the internet, I decided to research further and see what the majority of websites were saying.

Internet Discussion Groups and Forums

To my surprise, I found numerous postings and websites referencing Williamson as the author of the quote.
According to Ric Beattie, this quote is one of the greatest urban legends of “all time.”

“Interestingly, I have researched Mr. Mandela’s inaugural speeches (there were several) and have not found any reference to his ever having spoken these words. This frequent misquotation is one of the all-time greatest urban legends.”
~ Ric Beattie
http://www.chirhopress.com/newsletter_archive/newsletter_IV_No8.html

In addition to the overwhelming numbers of sites I found, Wikipedia also cites Marianne as the author of the famous quote. The following excerpt was taken from a Wikipedia search for Nelson Mandela.

“The following famous text by Marianne Williamson is often claimed to have been spoken by Mandela at his inauguration as President of South Africa. This is an urban myth; there is no record of Mandela ever having spoken these words in public:”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

Nelson Mandela’s Speeches

The general consensus is that Mandela spoke the words during his inaugural speech. Two links below have the speeches, as given in two different locations, but neither include the famous quote.

NELSON MANDELA’S ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF CAPE TOWN, GRAND PARADE, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS INAUGURATION AS STATE PRESIDENT
Cape Town, 9 May 1994
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1994/inaugct.html
STATEMENT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS NELSON ROLIHLAHLA MANDELA AT HIS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA UNION BUILDINGS
Pretoria, 10 May 1994
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1994/inaugpta.html

http://forum.quoteland.com/1/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=586192041&f=099191541&m=3471911041

http://cholmes.wordpress.com/2005/12/26/our-greatest-fear-is-not-that-we-are-inadequate/

Marianne Williamson’s Book

Some believe that the words were in fact spoken by Nelson Mandela as he quoted Marianne Williamson. Williamson states this hypothesis herself:

“Dear Bill,
Yep, that writing is two paragraphs from my l992 book “A RETURN TO LOVE.”(In the WORK section, in a chapter called PERSONAL POWER) Seeing it printed everywhere as a Nelson Mandela quote has been a rather strange experience… he definitely did not quote it in his inaugural, by the way. I have heard that he used the material in a lesser speech (so said his office), but I have never seen the text, so I don’t know what the context or attribution was.
Thanks for the compliment.
Please keep visiting.
My best,
Marianne“

The proof is in the pudding…Marianne’s book Return with love which unanimously states the quote was written in 1992. Nelson assumed leadership as the State President of South Africa in 1994, when he became better known. More importantly, after all of my research I could not find any hard evidence that Nelson was the original author of the quote, nor could I find any source that actually stated the place and time that Mandela said the words.

Some believe that Mandela would never have said such a quote.

“Frankly, I think it would sound really weird coming from his lips. Knowing the course his own life has taken, and having read speeches of his (including the inaugurals), both the style and content of this Williamson quote are a mismatch. It’s just not his schtick. This point was driven home by the following analysis:

People! Please! Nelson Mandela never said this. Nelson Mandela never even thought it. Nelson Mandela had bigger fish to fry at his Inauguration than worrying about the brilliance, gorgeousness, fabulousness or talent of anyone, including himself. (I mean really, can you imagine him standing before all of South Africa and nattering on about this stuff? “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”? How about “Our deepest fear is that we will be dragged from our beds and shot? Oy.)”
http://www.sfe.ca/~okeefe/previous.html [UPDATE (5/29/07): That page no longer exists]

How Did This Misunderstanding All Start?

So where would such an enormous misunderstanding come from? One web surfer offers a probable explanation:

“Hi,
I just stumbled across this forum while looking for this quote. I am almost sure that I heard an NPR (probably “All Things Considered”) news report about Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address in which we either heard Nelson Mandela say these words or they were attributed to him. I probably heard this report either at the time of his address or within a year after the address.

Hearing these words on the radio made a big impression on me and I have tried to find the original quotation unsuccessfully before. I just found out that these words are really Marianne Williamson’s. The irony is that I bought Marianne’s book, A Return to Love when it first came out and read it cover to cover. That book inspired me probably more than any other book I had ever read. The thought of Nelson Mandela speaking them to the South African people and to the world – if in fact he actually did that – has always been a beautiful image for me.” – “paul sawyer“

Conclusion

My conclusion is that there is much more evidence to support that Marianne Williamson is the original author of the “Our Worst fear is not that we are inadequate” quote. You may make your own conclusion. In closing I leave you with this:

One man wrote to the African National Congress (ANC) asking if Mandela had ever quoted it in any speech. Duncan Harford, an ANC representative, replied:

“We are aware that these words have for some years now been attributed to Nelson Mandela on the internet. We do not know how this happened.

These words appear in [neither] inaugural speeches and…[in none] of the other speeches, statements and writings by Mr. Mandela .

Regards Duncan“

— Assignment Start —

• Critical Thinking Question: When asking for links to clients websites, how can I use Ethos (credibility), Pathos (emotion), and Logos (logic) to persuade a potential partner for a link.
• Why it is significant: This is the basic function for any search engine optimizer. To obtain links from sites or people for clients. If I could master this skill of persuasion I could get a lot of links for without having to give away content, links, or develop larger business development deals.
  
• Answer:
• I can create Ethos or credibility by using: language appropriate to audience and subject, a restrained and sincere fair mindedness, appropriate level of vocabulary, and proper grammar. I must also convey to the potential partner that I am someone worth listening to. If I do all of the above then I should convey that I am likable and worthy of respect.
• I can create Pathos or emotion by using: stunning concrete language, emotionally loaded language, connotative meanings, emotional examples, vivid descriptions, narratives of emotional events, emotional tone, and figurative language. By choosing the appropriate form of verbiage I can have the effect I desire on my link partner’s emotional response to my request. I would talk about how my clients site has a worthy cause it needs help supporting, thus appealing to their humanity.
• I can create logic or Logos by using: theoretical abstract language, denotative meanings or reasons, literal and historical analogies, definitions, factual data and statistics, quotations, citations from experts and authorities, and informed opinions. Offering some free advice like pointing out common logical fallacies or bad practices when doing search engine optimization would increase my credibility, if my potential partner is interested in the subject. I can also support or give logical reasons of the benefit the link to my client’s website would give my potential partners website visitors and perhaps even offer a link back to them from my client if the benefits were equally great for my client’s website visitors.
• Summary: So my request might go something like this. (Ethos) Jim, my name is Bart Gibby, I work for LDSAudio.com. (Pathos) I feel that you have done a great job in appealing to the LDS market; you have done [add logical conclusion from website knowledge like a product/service]. It is because of this [add emotional benefit to user, market, industry] I wanted to call and offer you a partnership opportunity with us. [Pause and wait for reply of interest]. (Logos) I believe that we could increase traffic on both of our websites by promoting each others sites through a reciprocal link. This would also benefit our customers by giving them a larger opportunity to find more of what they want. How would you like to proceed?
• Citations:
• A General Summary of Aristotle’s Appeals . . .; http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html
• Logos, Ethos and Pathos, Examples and Definitions of; http://www.public.asu.edu/~macalla/logosethospathos.html
• Interactive Learning Activity: Have one or each person in the group pick their favorite website. Then have them identify potential link partners in which they feel they the audience of both websites match. Then proceed to find their contact information. Once this information is found call or email the contact person with a pre thought-out or written persuasive link request. We could assign three people to do Logos, three people to Pathos, three people to Ethos, and three people to a mix of all three. This way could see which method in general works best for a link request.

Well so math classes as you well know build upon each other and this is where I am at with Math:

1010: Intermediate Algebra > 1050: College Algebra > 1100: Calculus

Math 1050 also opens the door to Macroeconomics and Calculus opens up my Marketing Statistics class. The older I get the more I seem to like math and its higher functions like statistics and calculus. Had someone told me earlier that many of the search engines use calculus equations and that algebra is used a lot in Excel macros and so forth I would have eagerly learned more math sooner.

The funny thing is I was in Pre-Calculus in my Junior year at Bonneville High School. I guess not doing math for 5 years really put me behind in college when I took my math entry test. All well I will conquer math and use it to benefit my personal and professional life.

Cheers, to all of you who have already done so.

So I looked into the University of Phoenix for a third time and low and behold not all my credits transferred especially my upper division credits focusing on entrepreneurship. But the funny thing is this (I had this hunch, that’s why I looked into it again) it will take me less time to graduate from UOP than UVSC. Yes, that’s right I could work full time attending school full time at UOP graduating in 2 years or go to school part time at UVSC work full time and graduate in 2 and a half years. At UOP I need to earn about 53 credits hours at UVSC I need about 30.

Another advantage of UOP is that it is a university of national recognition, a working professionals school. Where UVSC is a college without any national recognition. Lets also mention that at UOP I’ll have the same learning team for the entire course of my degree, where at UVSC I hardly get to do any real social networking. I would occasionally have a team effort for one class, I never did get to know anyone all that well.

The major drawback of UOP is the cost, but as a business man I should not let that hinder my progress. What I mean is an education is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. UOP students don’t wine and complain every time tuition goes up, I wonder why? If they do it’s not the business students I’ll tell you that. Maybe government funded schools have students who are used to living off government hand outs, and when the cheese stops flowing they are too fat to run to the next pile (see the book “Who Stole My Cheese”).

But if the free enterprise market controlled education would UOP be so expensive, wouldn’t there be a low cost leader? But no matter, theory and speculation never made me as much money as results. UOP definitely has proven they can produce results.

So starting this summer I plan to attend UOP, we’ll see if I can get the funding (loans from companies not government) to go. It will be exciting to get a quality useful education for once. One I can actually use as an SEO specialist.