Desmond Tutu Quotes

Quotes about:

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  If 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 Tutu

  Bullying, Peace, Elephants

  FaceBook post by Desmond Tutu from Jan 22, 2014

  283 Copy quote
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  Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

  Desmond Tutu

  Life, Success, Peace

  FaceBook post by Desmond Tutu from Jan 04, 2014

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Order, Differences, Different

  Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Times”, p.76, Random House

  300 Copy quote

• 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

  Fall, Rivers, People

  350 Copy quote
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  If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

  Desmond Tutu

  Life, Friendship, Peace

  243 Copy quote

• We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.

  Desmond Tutu

  Beautiful, Inspirational Love, Gay

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Hope, Light, Darkness

  "The Priest". Interview with Deborah Solomon, www.nytimes.com. March 4, 2010.

  238 Copy quote

• One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

  Desmond Tutu

  Country, Thinking, Ubuntu

  197 Copy quote

• 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.

  Desmond Tutu

  Bible, Prayer, Eye

  310 Copy quote

• I can't control what happens to me, but I can control how I respond to it.

  Desmond Tutu

  Happens, I Can

  "Interview with Reverend Mpho Tutu of The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

  28 Copy quote

• Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.

  Desmond Tutu

  Maturity, Care, Agree To Disagree

  Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Times”, p.22, Random House

  168 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Change, Law, Collaboration

  40 Copy quote

• Africans believe in something that is difficult to render in English. We call it ubuntu, botho. It means the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humaneness, gentleness, hospitality, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

  Desmond Tutu

  Believe, Mean, Compassion

  Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

  159 Copy quote

• My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument."

  Desmond Tutu

  Morning, Father, Voice

  134 Copy quote

• We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else's opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.

  Desmond Tutu

  Hurt, Mean, Writing

  FaceBook post by Desmond Tutu from Apr 19, 2014

  20 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Inspiring, God, Freedom

  Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

  96 Copy quote

• Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.

  Desmond Tutu

  Believe, Tests, Gaza

  30 Copy quote

• If 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 Tutu

  Destiny, Common Humanity, Oneness

  43 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Wisdom, Fun, Memories

  76 Copy quote

• To remain neutral in situations of injustice is to be complicit in that injustice.

  Desmond Tutu

  Injustice, Situation

  190 Copy quote

• There's no way in which you can ever win a war against terror. As long as there are conditions in many parts of the world that make people desperate: poverty, disease, ignorance, etc. I hope that we will discover soon, that we can survive, only together. We can prosper only together. And I think people are beginning to realize this, that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think you can have a stable, secure world.

  Desmond Tutu

  War, Ignorance, Winning

  "Talk Asia" with Anjali Rao, www.cnn.com. October 24, 2007.

  244 Copy quote

• I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

  Desmond Tutu

  Racist, Territory, Apartheid

  73 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Cutting, Knives, Religion

  87 Copy quote

• We must act now and wake up to our moral obligations. The poor and vulnerable are members of God's family and are the most severely affected by droughts, high temperatures, the flooding of coastal cities, and more severe and unpredictable weather events resulting from climate change. We, who should have been responsible stewards preserving our vulnerable, fragile planet home, have been wantonly wasteful through our reckless consumerism, devouring irreplaceable natural resources.

  Desmond Tutu

  Home, Should Have, Cities

  68 Copy quote

• A person is a person through other persons. None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.

  Desmond Tutu

  Thinking, Order, People

  52 Copy quote

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