Dominique Huskey's List: Myth Busters Research

• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure
• The average person could hardly be faulted for thinking the stirring words quoted above were spoken by former South African president Nelson Mandela, as they have been attributed to him in numerous web sites, films, books, and motivational posters, often cited as a passage from the speech Mandela gave upon his inauguration as the first black president of South Africa. However, these words appear in neither the inaugural address Mandela delivered in Cape Town on 9 May 1994 nor the one he delivered the following day in Pretoria, nor do they come from any other speech or writing of Nelson Mandela's.
• This oft-reproduced reflection about "our deepest fear" originated with the 1992 work A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles, the best-selling first book by author Marianne Williamson. Of the misattribution of her words, Ms. Williamson said:

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• Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed spiritual author and lecturer. Six of her ten published books have been New York Times Best Sellers. Four of these have been #1 New York Times Best Sellers. A paragraph from A Return to Love, beginning "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure..." - is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers.
  

• It was Marianne Williamson. I had the same question so I researched it a little bit. This quote is often attributed to Nelson Mandela and Marianne Williamson. So here are some things I found. I hope this helps.
   
   http://www.bartgibby.com/2007/09/19/marianne-williamson-or-nelson-mandela/
   
   http://skdesigns.com/internet/articles/quotes/williamson/our_deepest_fear/
   
   http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson
   
   http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/4564.htm

• THE FAMOUS SPEECH THAT NELSON MANDELA NEVER GAVE...
  

• This passage is commonly mis-attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inaugural Address.

   It actually comes from the book 'A Return To Love' (1992) by Marianne Williamson 

   

• We found that many of these, often lifted from websites purporting to contain accurate information about Mandela, were not correct. One of the main ‘quotes’ by which Mandela is misquoted contains, in actual fact, the words of American author Marianne Williamson from her book A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles. She wrote: “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” This quote, and especially Williamson’s closing words, “As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”, are often incorrectly credited to Mandela."
   

   

   

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• Nelson Mandela Never Said One Of His Most Famous 'Quotes

• But this quote doesn't appear in any of his three public inauguration speeches, according to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory.

   

• My favorite example of the fanciful quotation is a passage that’s been floating around the Internet for years. It’s frequently attributed to Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, and said to be an excerpt from his 1994 inaugural address.

   “Our deepest fear,” the passage goes, “is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. ... As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

   Picture it: Mr. Mandela, newly free after 27 years in prison, using his inaugural platform to inform us that we all have the right to be gorgeous, talented and fabulous, and that thinking so will liberate others. It’s hard to imagine it without laughing. Of course, it turns out it’s not actually an excerpt from this or any other known address of Mr. Mandela’s. In fact, the words aren’t even his; they belong to a self-help guru, Marianne Williamson.

• Falser Words Were Never Spoken