Reflections on Nelson Mandela

"Every time Nelson Mandela walks into a room we all feel a little bigger, we all want to stand up, we all want to cheer, because we'd like to be him on our best day."

"What makes his story so special is that he's a real human being. He laughs, he cries, he gets mad. He's got real life. He cares deeply about his family and friends. His common touch and common sense make his greatness and his infectious optimism in the face of all that has happened to him all the more remarkable."

—Former President Bill Clinton

"How blessed we have been that he should have been at the helm at what was without doubt the trickiest and most delicate transition process, and he took our breath away with his magnanimity."

"He has a remarkable gift of making us South Africans feel good about ourselves. During his presidency this feel-good factor was at its peak. Almost all of us would look at a glass with some water in it and say, 'It is half full.' Hardly ever did we get to say then, 'It is half empty.'"

—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"In one of our early conversations I asked Mandela whether he did not feel hatred toward the people who imprisoned him during the most active and formative years of his life. I remember him saying, 'What's the point? That's how the country was at that time, but now it is different.' He was almost impatient to get on and talk about what was going to happen now. It is that absence of bitterness and the extraordinary desire to heal divisions that marks him out for people and why I think they feel they can invest so much affection and admiration in him."

—British Prime Minister Tony Blair

"Our children and future generations need to understand that Mandela is not just another person learned about in history books. They need to know that his actions, his perseverance, his courage changed the course of an entire nation. He boldly, and quite literally, changed history. He is living proof that one person has the power to effect positive change in our world."

—World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali

"Madiba has the kind of nobility that just cannot be denied. The only way one race or people can keep another down is if deep down we believe the other race is not equal to us, not as capable as us. With Mandela it was very clear that he wasn't equal: He was way above everyone else. He completely turned it around again, like judo, using the language of the colonizing force better than they could, taking the words out of their mouths and arranging them in such a way that it was inconceivable that black and white should be kept apart, that it was always a ridiculous notion. The world discovered the potential of South Africa through the poetry of Madiba's speeches and his communiqués. It's imagination: It's not seen to be believed, it's believed to be seen."

—Internationally acclaimed musician Bono

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