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Desmond Tutu Quotes

All Quotes Abuse Accidents Age Apartheid Caring Challenges Children Choices Christ Church Commitment Community Compassion Competition Conflict Country Death Penalty Dignity Diversity Earth Empathy Energy Environment Evil Failing Family Fighting Forgiveness Freedom Fun Future Gaza Generosity Giving God Goodness Grace Hate Healing Heart Heaven Hell Holocaust Home Humanity Humility Hurt Injustice Insecurity Inspirational Inspiring Jesus Justice Justification Laughter Life Lifetime Lying Memories Mercy Military Nursing Opportunity Pain Past Peace Politics Pope Poverty Prophet Quality Racism Reality Reconciliation Religion Revenge Risk Running Sin Slavery Suffering Unity Universe Violence Vision Waiting War Water Weakness Wife Worship

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

Order, Differences, Different

Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Times”, p.76, Random House

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Bullying, Peace, Elephants

FaceBook post by Desmond Tutu from Jan 22, 2014

Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

Life, Success, Peace

FaceBook post by Desmond Tutu from Jan 04, 2014

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.

Fall, Rivers, People

We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.

Beautiful, Inspirational Love, Gay

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Life, Friendship, Peace

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

Hope, Light, Darkness

"The Priest". Interview with Deborah Solomon, www.nytimes.com. March 4, 2010.

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

Country, Thinking, Ubuntu

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Bible, Prayer, Eye

Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.

Believe, Tests, Gaza

I can't control what happens to me, but I can control how I respond to it.

Happens, I Can

"Interview with Reverend Mpho Tutu of The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

And every human being is precious.

Humans, Human Beings

Interview with Anjali Rao, www.cnn.com. October 24, 2007.

Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.

Maturity, Care, Agree To Disagree

Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Times”, p.22, Random House

Goodness is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Light is stronger than darkness. Life is stronger than death. Victory is ours through Him who loved us.

Peace, Hate, Love Is

Africans believe in something that is difficult to render in English. We call it ubuntu, botho. It means the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humaneness, gentleness, hospitality, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

Believe, Mean, Compassion

Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

Inspiring, God, Freedom

Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

Revenge, Politics

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument."

Morning, Father, Voice

Instead of separation and division, all distinctions make for a rich diversity to be celebrated for the sake of the unity that underlies them. We are different so that we can know our need of one another.

Diversity, Unity, Different

You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can't be neutral.

Sides, Oppressed, Oppressors

"Desmond Tutu is one of a rare breed" by Cath Elliott, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 2010.

A person is a person through other persons. None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.

Thinking, Order, People

We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else's opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.

Hurt, Mean, Writing

FaceBook post by Desmond Tutu from Apr 19, 2014

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it

People, Determined, Impossible

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

Compassion, Empathy, Soul

There's no way in which you can ever win a war against terror. As long as there are conditions in many parts of the world that make people desperate: poverty, disease, ignorance, etc. I hope that we will discover soon, that we can survive, only together. We can prosper only together. And I think people are beginning to realize this, that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think you can have a stable, secure world.

War, Ignorance, Winning

"Talk Asia" with Anjali Rao, www.cnn.com. October 24, 2007.

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