I don't struggle to forgive people. I find it quite easy to forgive people for the harms that they have inflicted on me. What I do find challenging is to forgive people for the harms they inflict on my daughters and family. So, I find it challenging when I see somebody else experience hurt. I also look at my children and family and then I realize, I don't stand inside their skin and that is for me a forgiveness practice I still need to engage in.
Desmond TutuRestorative justice says "No, the offense affected a relationship" and what you are seeking for is to restore the relationship, to heal the relationship.
Desmond TutuI believe in MasterPeace. World leaders cannot push back armed conflict alone. We need the whole world to make this happen.
Desmond TutuEach person is a V.S.P. (a Very Special Person) because we are each created in the image of God.
Desmond TutuIt was spine tingling, actually, when you saw how people kept saying, "Release Nelson Mandela," and meaning really, "Release all of our political prisoners."
Desmond TutuIf we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another's, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.
Desmond TutuIt always comes back to our insecurities, as we say, "Oh, I'm not as good as you." So instead of accepting that perhaps I am not as good as someone else in some ways and being comfortable with who I am as I am, I spend all my time denigrating you, trying to cut you down to my self-perceived size. The sad problem is that we see ourselves as being quite terribly small. Instead of spending my time being envious, I need to celebrate your and my different gifts, even if mine are perhaps less spectacular than yours.
Desmond TutuI have often said to my Jewish friends: "Please just remember where you come from. Remember Yahweh, who said to the Israelites, 'Treat the alien well with justice.'" Almost all of the passion that we have has come from the inspiration that we have got from the Jewish Scriptures.
Desmond TutuYou know when ubuntu is there, and it is obvious when it is absent. It has to do with what it means to be truly human, to know that you are bound up with others in the bundle of life.
Desmond TutuIt's a fantastic thing, a very simple idea. Irrespective of your politics, of your culture, of your race, of your whatever, hierdie ding doen ons saam...Here is one thing that can unite us irrespective of all of the things that are trying to tear us apart.
Desmond TutuWhat is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?
Desmond TutuThere is no situation that is not transformable. There is no person who is hopeless. There is no set of circumstances that cannot be turned about by ordinary human beings and their natural capacity for love of the deepest sort.
Desmond TutuWhen God grabs you by the scruff of the neck then although theoretically you have a freedom to say 'no', in another sense, actually, you can't say no because it's like Jeremiah. 'God, you have cheated me. You called me to be a prophet against the people that I love, and all that I proclaim is words of doom and judgement.' And yet if I say "I will shut up", I can't.
Desmond TutuThere 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.
Desmond TutuWhen we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.
Desmond TutuIn order to turn around and do something better, we must first escape the vicious circle of self-righteousness and denial. And that calls for the humility to say "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
Desmond TutuThere would be those of us who say that in many ways, you worry about what the Jews in Israel are doing to themselves. Yes, they may at the moment have incredible power and are supported almost unconditionally by especially America, but most of the West as well. Yet what they are doing is contrary to the best teaching and highest teachings of their faith.
Desmond TutuIf 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.
Desmond TutuI am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . .
Desmond TutuIt's a fantastic thing that from moment to the next moment if God were to have stopped for a split second we would disintegrate into nothingness. And the incredible thing is that God breaths this breath and keeps each of us in existence, in being, even when we chose to reject God. Now if I had that kind of power I would snuff you out! But God doesn't.
Desmond TutuIn 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.
Desmond TutuI wish that we did have a magic wand which we could wave and hey presto! Magic! Unfortunately life is not like that.
Desmond TutuThere is no peace precisely because there has been no justice. As painful and inconvenient as justice may be, we have seen that the alternative allowing accountability to fall by the wayside is worse.
Desmond TutuFor goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.
Desmond TutuOur Lord wanted us to be Christ-like. Christ-like doesn't mean not having faults. It means that you do actually have a capacity to draw out the good that is in others.
Desmond TutuWe must stop climate change. And we can, if we use the tactics that worked in South Africa against the worst carbon emitters.
Desmond TutuWhen we hear a story of the abuse of a child or the abuse of women almost all people are appalled by instances of that kind.
Desmond TutuThe fundamental law of human beings is interdependence. A person is a person through other persons.
Desmond TutuIf you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.
Desmond Tutu