(Yes, I get nostalgic sometimes...)
- And this from Bill's commencement address at Rochester Institute of Technology:
Consider what you celebrate today at RIT. You learn together; you master technologies; you have rational arguments; you look at evidence. You learn from each other and you appreciate your differences.
How much of the world is dominated by patterns of thought and action directly opposite to what you have come here to pay tribute to, to political and religious, even emotional fundamentalism, designed to divide rather than unite, to crush argument, to seize power rather than to empower people?
How you think matters. And how people see you thinking matters.
I don't know how many times, when I was president and I was trying to convince people to make peace in one area of the world or another, someone would tell me, I hate it that we're doing this, but we have to because of the way they behave.
How much behavior in the world today; how many tribal wars; how many ethnic and religious conflicts are being driven by people who justify their conduct based on what someone else did to them or how they made them feel ashamed?
I don't care if you've got a Ph.D. and if you've been to outer space and back, every time, for the rest of your life -- you remember this -- every time, for the rest of your life, you say, do, or feel anything because you say, I have no choice because of how destructive people were to me, or because I had this problem or that problem, you give up your freedom.
You are only a free person when you recognize that every moment of every day, no matter what happens to you, no matter what is said to you, no matter what is done to you or your crowd, you still are free to decide how to respond.
(APPLAUSE)
That's why Gandhi was a free man and a great man.
(APPLAUSE)
That's why Mandela is recognized for the enduring greatness, not of his sacrifice, but of the way he responded to his sacrifice, not just inviting his jailers to his inauguration, but putting the leaders of the political parties that supported apartheid in his government, because, he said, "If I want us to go forward together, that means them, too."
He was a free man because no one could make him hate or kill or react. He got to decide.
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