Desmond Tutu Quotes

Forgiveness is the grace by which you enable the other person to get up and get up with dignity, to begin anew.

I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person.

Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, 'God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?'

The fundamental law of human beings is interdependence. A person is a person through other persons.

It is not too surprising that, having been involved in a policy as evil and dehumanizing as apartheid,

Men and boys, we show our manhood through the way we treat our women. Our wives, our sisters, our mothers.

I think it is a good exercise to ask oneself, "How would I have wanted to be treated?"

I am because other people are.

I don't know any religion that promotes violence. It is the adherents of whatever religion.

I'm not an optimist; I'm a prisoner of hope.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

I have voted for the ANC, but I would very sadly not be able to vote for them after the way things have gone,

do not heal in isolation. Connecting with others is how we develop compassion for others and for ourselves.

Let girls be girls and not brides

If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is WOMEN!

We will only truly be free when those in bondage are finally free

In many ways, when you're a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.

One of the ways of helping to destroy a people is to tell them they don't have a history that they have no roots.

Nothing is too much trouble for Love.

To forgive is to abandon your right to pay back the predator in his own coin, but it is the loss that Liberates.

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.

God says, 'You know what? I don't have anybody else ... except you.'

Life is more than breath and a heartbeat; meaning and purpose are the life of life.

Though wrong gratifies in the moment, good yields its gifts over a lifetime.

There can be no healing without truth.

When we see the face of a child, we think of the future. We think of their dreams about what they might become, and what they might accomplish.

Many people would be surprised that, in fact, I'm quite shy.

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

Each one of us can be an oasis of peace.

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

After all, we are created in the image of a God who is a diversity of persons who exist in ineffable unity. This

You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.

I'm coming to believe more and more in the truth that everything we do has consequences. A good deed doesn't just evaporate and disappear.

South Africa, so utterly improbably, is a beacon of hope in a dark and troubled world.

I would like to share with you two simple truths: there is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one un-deserving of forgiveness.

Some people are able to use Bible as a means of opposing injustice, whereas others are able to find justification.

We learn from history that we don't learn from history!

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.

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

I believe in MasterPeace. World leaders cannot push back armed conflict alone. We need the whole world to make this happen.

We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.

The world's forests are a shared stolen treasure that we must put back for our children's future

God says, "Please, please help me realize this dream." And some of God's best collaborators are the young, because you dream. You dream God's dream.

Fundamental rights belong to the human being just because you are a human being.

People united in pursuit of a righteous cause are unstoppable

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.
[Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004]

When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it's again not people who are intrinsically evil.

A person is a person because s/he recognizes others as persons.

Catharsis returns us to the purpose for which were originally intended - to be called by God to do good - and thus ultimately returns us to ourselves.

We would like to see you departing peacefully.

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

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

We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.

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

Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion.

God is patient with us to become the God's children he wants us to be but you really can see him weeping.

The black person entered the booth one person and emerged on the other side a new, transfigured person.

I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone ... I think, myself, that it is an obscenity ...

Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

When people decide they want to be free, there is nothing that can stop them.

Without memory, there is no healing. Without forgiveness, there is no future.

Love your enemy; it will ruin his reputation.

God is not a diversion.

We need other human beings in order to be human.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

If we have loved well while we were alive, there is life after death here-our love will go on for generations.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

Laugh more. Don't forget to enjoy the blessings that God bestows on this beautiful planet.

Dream! Dream! And then go for it!

The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life.

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.

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it

We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our Earth.

I am a Nobel Peace laureate and my business should be to try to bring stability, not to be a red rag to bulls.

Anything war can do, peace can do better.

The way to understand any enemy is to realize that, from his perspective, he is not a villain but a hero.

One day we'll wake up and discover we are family.

God is not a Christian.

Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't.

We must stop climate change. And we can, if we use the tactics that worked in South Africa against the worst carbon emitters.

When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All

I want my commitment to ending girl marriage to be equal to my commitment to ending apartheid.

The world is awful but also the world is beautiful. Human beings are awful, but ultimately human beings are tremendous.

Love is much more demanding than law.

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

Human beings can be awful, but they can also be tremendous.

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

Trust is one of the fundamentals of human existence. We need to be able to trust one another. A man who can no longer trust anyone will become sick.

I have absolutely no objection to performance and success as long as they don't become false idols and threaten to rule our lives.

People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful.

In the Bible, we first encounter God when he sides with a bunch of slaves against a powerful Pharaoh, an act of grace freely given.

Child of God, known by name and whose very hairs are numbered. Praise and adore God and thank him for ever and ever. Amen.

One of the things we might want to learn when considering the failings of others is not to gloat because someone else has tripped up.

The world needs a revolution led by women

In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.