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Desmond Tutu Quotes - Page 15

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

If everyone who wants to see an end to poverty, hunger and suffering speaks out, then the noise will be deafening.

If everyone who wants to see an end to poverty, hunger and suffering speaks out, then the noise will be deafening.

Speaks Out, Suffering, Want

Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa - particularly the 'forgotten emergencies' in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.

Country, Lying, Islands

There are different kinds of justice. Retributive justice is largely Western. The African understanding is far more restorative - not so much to punish as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew.

Justice, Balance, Different

"Recovering From Apartheid" by Tina Rosenberg, www.newyorker.com. November 18, 1996.

We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

Being Alone, Acceptance, Ready

Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Is Not a Christian: And Other Provocations”, p.12, Harper Collins

I'd rather go to hell than worship a homophobic God.

Worship, Hell, Homophobic

Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

Children, Real, Educational

Desmond Tutu's Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1984.

True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible. We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer. We have to accept that we do what we do for generations past, present and yet to come. That is what makes a community a community or a people a people-for better or for worse.

Nursing, Past, People

We have an extraordinary God. God is a mighty God, but this God needs you. When someone is hungry, bread doesn't come down from heaven. When God wants to feed the hungry, you and I must feed the hungry. And now God wants peace in the world.

Peace, Heaven, Needs

We worshipped in the temple of cutthroat competition, and so some cooked the books, because the treasure is so great.

Book, Competition, Treasure

Freedom is indivisible. Whites can't enjoy their separate freedoms. They spend too much time and resources defending those freedoms instead of enjoying them.

Justice, Diversity, Too Much

Desmond Tutu (1985). “Hope and Suffering”, Eerdmans Publishing Company

And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be - eagles, not chickens.

Inspirational, Graduation, Beautiful

"Desmond Tutu: 'And God Says to All of Us, You Are No Chicken; You Are an Eagle'". Desmond Tutu's commencement address at Brandeis University, www.beliefnet.com. 2000.

Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional.

Children, Sorry, Suffering

Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Times”, p.71, Random House

I believe history teaches us a categorical lesson: that once a people are determined to become free, then nothing in the world can stop them reaching their goal.

Believe, People, Goal

Desmond Tutu, John Webster (1982). “Bishop Desmond Tutu, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: a collection of his recent statements in the struggle for justice in South Africa”

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

Country, Children, Rights

And one day, this thing happened to me: I coughed, and the blood just came gushing out of my mouth. ... I still can't believe that that happened to me, but I sat there, and I said to God, 'Well, if it means I'm going to die, that's OK.' I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

Believe, Mean, Thinking

"Desmond Tutu, Insisting We Are 'Made For Goodness'". Interview with Renee Montagne, www.npr.org. March 11, 2010.

We who advocate peace are becoming an irrelevance when we speak peace. The government speaks rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention, and death.

Dog, Irrelevance, Government

Sunday Times Magazine, June 08, 1986.

No one is self-sufficient. And it's not a one-way thing- -the generosity of spirit from one side provokes a response in kind from the other side.

Self, Generosity, Way

It is very difficult now in South Africa to find anyone who ever supported apartheid.

Difficult, Apartheid, South

Freedom and liberty lose out by default because good people are not vigilant.

People, Liberty, Default

Desmond Tutu, Mothobi Mutloatse, John Webster (1984). “Hope and suffering: sermons and speeches”, W.B. Eerdmans, 1984

We used to say to the apartheid government: you may have the guns, you may have all this power, but you have already lost. Come: join the winning side. His Holiness and the Tibetan people are on the winning side.

Gun, Winning, Government

"Dalai Lama honours Tintin and Tutu", BBC News, June 2, 2006.

To forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that summum bonum, the greatest good.

Revenge, Self, Forgiving

God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd rather let us freely go to Hell than be compelled to go to Heaven.

Heaven, Hell, Reverence

Beyers Naudé memorial lecture, August 15, 2003.

We need to be accountable to God's family. Once we start living in a way that is people-friendly to all of God's family, we will also be environment-friendly.

People, Environmental, Friendly

I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.

Thinking

"The secrets of a peacemaker" by Gary Younge, www.theguardian.com. May 22, 2009.

The future of our fragile, beautiful planet home is in our hands. As God's family, we are stewards of God's creation. We can be wantonly irresponsible, or we can be caring and compassionate. God says, "I have set before you life and death... Choose life."

Beautiful, Home, Caring

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