Desmond Tutu Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu Quotes & Sayings

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

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

The leaders that the world admires seem almost all to be people who haven't had things quite so smooth or easy in their lives. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

I am because other people are. — Desmond Tutu

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

Hate has no place in the house of God. — Desmond Tutu

We are made for loving. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

To be impartial ... is indeed to have taken sides already ... with the status quo. — Desmond Tutu

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

Healing means that our dignity is restored and we are able to move forward in our lives. — Desmond Tutu

There can be no healing without truth. — Desmond Tutu

Give young people a greater voice. They are the future and they are much wiser than we give them credit for. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

Each one of us can be an oasis of peace. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

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. — Desmond Tutu

As we say in our African idiom, a person is a person through other persons. To dehumanize another inexorably means that one is dehumanized as well. — Desmond Tutu

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

Catharsis is about cleansing and healing at one and the same time - healing memories and attitudes, healing the spirit and the heart. — Desmond Tutu

In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

The truth of who we are is that we are because we belong. — Desmond Tutu

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

Nursing a grudge is bad for your heath. — Desmond Tutu

To forgive is not just to be altruistic. — Desmond Tutu

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

People united in pursuit of a righteous cause are unstoppable — Desmond Tutu

People are able to justify immense cruelty and say that it is something that is sanctioned by their faith. — Desmond Tutu

There is no religion in fact that I know that encourages or propagates violence in that its adherents should carry out. — Desmond Tutu

A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry.
It gives a chance, an opportunity, to choose well or to choose badly. — Desmond Tutu

When we look at a conflict, it is so often rooted in injustice, prejudice, competition for resources, poverty, poor governance and corruption. — Desmond Tutu

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are. — Desmond Tutu

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

To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo. — Desmond Tutu

If you recall the happiest moments in your life, they are all from when you were doing something for somebody else. — Desmond Tutu

We need other human beings in order to be human. — Desmond Tutu

The devastation wreaked by landmines is not only horrendous but immoral — Desmond Tutu

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

Forgiving is a gift to the forgiver as well as to the perpetrator. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons. — Desmond Tutu

We can enjoy a self-assurance that doesn't depend on the state of things outside ourselves, be it downturns or booms or whatever. — Desmond Tutu

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled? — Desmond Tutu

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

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

We must not only speak about forgiveness and reconciliation, we must act on these principles. — Desmond Tutu

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it — Desmond Tutu

The destruction of the earth's environment is the human rights challenge of our time. — Desmond Tutu

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

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. — Desmond Tutu

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

Dream! Dream! And then go for it! — Desmond Tutu

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

As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless. — Nelson Mandela

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

Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion. — Desmond Tutu

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

It's a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela. — Desmond Tutu

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

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

Every single one of us can do something, however small, to make a difference. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

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

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. — Desmond Tutu

We would like to see you departing peacefully. — Desmond Tutu

Oh, 1994, April 27. There won't be a day like that ever again. I mean, the sky was blue, with a blueness that had never been there before. — Desmond Tutu

Beware when you take on the Church of God. Others have tried and have bitten the dust. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

And every human being is precious. — Desmond Tutu

The universe can take quite a while to deliver. — Desmond Tutu

God is not a diversion. — Desmond Tutu

It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men. — Desmond Tutu

Each person is a V.S.P. (a Very Special Person) because we are each created in the image of God. — Desmond Tutu

Love your enemy; it will ruin his reputation. — Desmond Tutu

Without memory, there is no healing. Without forgiveness, there is no future. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

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

To remain neutral in situations of injustice is to be complicit in that injustice. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

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

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised. — Desmond Tutu