Desmond Tutu Quotes

If you do not for give you actually are tying yourself to the perpetrator, that you are going to live your life as a victim. And you won't experience a liberation that comes from forgiving.

Ubuntu tells us that we can create a more peaceful world by striving for goodness in each moment, wherever we are.

When you think of the KKK, they actually have as their emblem a fiery cross. And they don't see any contradiction between the cross, an instrument of suffering that procured our reconciliation with God, and its use as a symbol for nefarious attacks on black people. But they believe that they are being obedient to God because they can read things that they see.

When a pile of cups is tottering on the edge of the table and you warn that they will crash to the ground, in South Africa you are blamed when that happens.

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.

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.

Like humility, generosity comes from seeing that everything we have and everything we accomplish comes from God's grace and God's love for us . . . Certainly it is from experiencing this generosity of God and the generosity of those in our life that we learn gratitude and to be generous to others.

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

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.

There can be no healing without truth.

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.

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

We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.

We can arrive at better solutions to any problem or pain together, than we can by ourselves. The beauty of the modern age is that you are able to source answers, and sometimes the genius is in the combination of ideas and energy that does not reside in only one person.

And you remember the rainbow in the Bible is the sign of peace. The rainbow is the sign of prosperity. We want peace, prosperity and justice and we can have it when all the people of God, the rainbow people of God, work together.

You have seen after Katrina just what failures there are in American Society.

I'm so thankful a significant majority of Americans are saying no to military intervention. We've got to find a solution that will in the end be one that makes Syria a better country, a better people.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

Revenge has a way of corroding you, the revenger. You know it doesn't heal you.

Human beings are fundamentally good.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

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?"

Without forgiveness, there is no future. Forgiveness is not nebulous, impractical and idealistic. It's thoroughly realistic. It's real political in the long run.

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute - a white skin.

I have a lot of time for young people.

You have to understand that the Bible is really a library of books and it has different categories of material. There are certain parts which you have to say no to. The Bible accepted slavery. St Paul said women should not speak in church at all and there are people who have used that to say women should not be ordained. There are many things that you shouldn't accept.

We are interconnected.

Whether you want to say Israel practices apartheid is immaterial. They are doing things, given their history, you think, "Do you remember what happened to you?" Then they clobber you and say, "You are anti-Semitic."

I will never tell anyone to pick up a gun. But I will pray for the man who picks up a gun, pray that he will be less cruel than he might otherwise have been.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

There are very good Christians who are compassionate and caring. And there are very bad Christians. You can say that about Islam, about Hinduism, about any faith. That is why I was saying that it was not the faith per se but the adherent. People will use their religion to justify virtually anything.

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

The way God operates is on the basis of love.

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

It is for real that injustice and oppression will not have the last word. There was a time when Hitler looked like he was going to vanquish all of Europe, and where is he now?

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

The pressure to succeed has a lot to do with why people overstep the line. It is a peculiar weakness of western culture where we have made a fetish of success.

I think we have got to put fire under the feet of all kinds of people.

The worst thing that can happen to anybody in this cultural environment is to fail.

People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change.

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.

Each of us is precious to God because each of us has their name written on the palms of God's hands. And God says there are no outsiders - black, white, yellow, short, tall, young, old, rich, poor, gay, lesbian, straight - everyone. All belong. And God says, I have only you to help me realize my dream. Help me.

I have struggled against tyranny. I didn't do that in order to substitute another.

The way sometimes we preach we make out that God is waiting eagerly to catch us out. It's not that way at all. I mean, it is extraordinary because it almost is as if God in fact wills us also to sin, but that is not true.

We are made for loving.

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

God loved me before I actually was.