Desmond Tutu Quotes

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.

Climate change: Never before in history have human beings been called on to act collectively in defence of the Earth

Hate has no place in the house of God.

I am human because I belong, I participate, I share.

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.

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

Only if we face up to our past can we regain our credibility. If we pretend that our trust is greater than it is, we will be like someone who tries to patch over a crack.

You don't think we have a copyright to forgiveness, it is done by people everywhere.

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

We are living in an historic moment. We are each called to take part in a great transformation. Our survival as a species is threatened by global warming, economic meltdown, and an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. Yet these threats offer an opportunity to awaken as an interconnected and beloved community.

True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.

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.

Every situation of justice is an occasion where someone is being humiliated and they want to restore their dignity. They think, "I am a human being and I may not be able to defeat these people or destroy them, but I will hit out at them, because I am not a thing, I am human."

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you've closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

An abusive relationship should be easy to identify though often one of the most difficult to end.

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

Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.

Brothers and sisters of Egypt, you have given the world the most precious gift: the belief that ultimately right will prevail.

As the victim, you offer the gift of your forgiving to the perpetrator who may or may not appropriate the gift but it has been offered and thereby it liberates the victim.

For both the offender and the victim, the pain is there, often unacknowledged and that is when it can cause harm through festering. When I ignore a physical wound, it does not go away. No, it festers and goes bad.

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

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

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.

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

Sadly, the things that we have set out as being worth striving for are not ultimately the things that satisfy human longings. And why not? Because we are practically the ultimate paradox: the finite made for the infinite.

Once you have women liberated, it's amazing how many other problems get resolved--pover ty, education, health. Women are the key in any community.

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

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

Even the worst dictator, there is not a single one of them who would say "Oh yes, I violate human rights." They all claim "oh no, we respect human rights" even when they are doing the most egregious things.

In terms of the New Testament the Jews must suffer, therefore we will put it into practice if we will in charge and there will be no sympathy for the Jews when the blacks take over.

If we succeed in empowering girls, we'll succeed in everything else.

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

As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.

Who can stop climate change? We can. You and you and you, and me. And it is not just that we can stop it, we have a responsibility to do so that began in the genesis of humanity, when God commanded the earliest human inhabitants of the Garden of Eden, "to till it and keep it". To "keep" it; not to abuse it, not to make as much money as possible from it, not to destroy it.

We were an extraordinary paradox. We are finite creatures made for the infinite.

We can encourage more of our universities and municipalities, foundations, corporations, individuals and cultural institutions... to move their money out of the problem (fossil fuels) and into the solutions (renewable energy)

Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.

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

All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others

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

To forgive is not just to be altruistic.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom.

Those of us who came to be Christians get to remember that forgiveness cost God the death of God's son. It's an expensive thing in many ways.

It makes no sense to invest in [fossil fuel] companies that undermine our future

Never let anyone make you feel inferior for being who you are. When you live the life you were meant to live, in freedom and dignity

God is forever using especially young people, not oldies like us, God likes using young people.

We must embrace our differences, even celebrate our diversity. We must glory in the fact that God created each of us as unique human beings. God created us different, but God did not create us for separation. God created us different that we might recognize our need for one another. We must reverence our uniqueness, reverence everything that makes us what we are: our language, our culture, our religious tradition.

We so desperately long for all of us to learn that we are meant for one another. We are meant for complementarity. The Syrians are members of our family.