FACTBOX: Tributes for Mandela's 90th birthday

(Reuters) - Tributes poured in on Friday for the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela, an international symbol of reconciliation and forgiveness. Here are a selection:

NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU:

"How blessed we have been. He has become the most admired statesman in the world, an icon of forgiveness and reconciliation, a moral colossus."

SOUTH AFRICA'S LAST WHITE PRESIDENT, F.W. DE KLERK, WHO

NEGOTIATED THE END OF APARTHEID RULE:

"He was a hard, sometimes remorseless, negotiating partner and our relationship was often severely strained ... Now he and I are both retired from active politics and I am honored to be able to call him my friend."

GRACA MACHEL, MANDELA'S THIRD WIFE:

"I'm happy that in the sunset years of his life, I'm there for him. And of course, he's there for me too ... Madiba (Mandela's clan name) offers that sense of dignity, the sense of perseverance in what is good, what is just."

BARBARA PHOFO, JOHANNESBURG STUDENT:

"He gave us freedom. If it wasn't for him we would have not been where we are. Because of you, now I can walk freely. I can go to any school that I want and find a job of my own."

MPONDOMISE NDZAMBO, PRINCIPAL OF A SCHOOL IN QUNU WHERE

MANDELA GREW UP:

"He suffered a lot trying to get this South Africa to be free and fair. I think he is a great man."

NADINE GORDIMER, NOBEL LITERATURE LAUREATE:

"Your love of your country, our country, pursued for human freedom at enormous personal cost of suffering, has been and is the achievement, the consecration of your life."

SINGER YVONNE CHAKA CHAKA: