Abraham Lincoln truly inspired me. It wasn't just the freeing of the slaves, he kept the Union together. Some people even forget that today. What I think inspired me was the fact that in spite of being the president of the United States he retained a certain down-to-earth quality. He never got to be a big shot, and he cared about people.
Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them?
407 answers answered between 1985 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
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On the record
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The problem with my job is that you meet people you admire and then you don’t admire them so much. The only one I carried on admiring was Nelson Mandela.
Dr Denis Mukwege, because he is to sexualised violence against females what Mandela was to apartheid.
Barack Obama, because he believed he could be president of the United States, and he succeeded. He was kind, and he tried to set a high standard of leadership.
The pope. I was brought up in the Catholic religion, and I think he is trying to make the church more accepting of all. He’s got a very hard job because the church is very stuck in its rightwing conservative ways.
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