Desmond Tutu Quotes - Page 15

Quotes about:

• To forgive is not just to be altruistic.

  Desmond Tutu

  Forgiving

  Desmond Tutu (2012). “No Future Without Forgiveness”, p.35, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of what has happened when you are treated unfairly. Forgiveness is not pretending that things are other than the way they are.

  Desmond Tutu

  Forgiveness, Way, Pretending

  21 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Atheist, Dust, Scary

  4 Copy quote

• Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

  Desmond Tutu

  Children, Real, Educational

  Desmond Tutu's Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1984.

  10 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Speaks Out, Suffering, Want

  4 Copy quote

• We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say, '...we shouldn't have done that.'

  Desmond Tutu

  Honesty, Integrity, Character

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

  4 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Thinking, Death Penalty, Obscenity

  7 Copy quote

• My vote is my secret.

  Desmond Tutu

  Voting, Secret, Vote

  10 Copy quote

• To be impartial... is indeed to have taken sides already... with the status quo.

  Desmond Tutu

  Taken, Sides, Status Quo

  4 Copy quote

• I think that because this is a moral universe, then right will prevail, goodness will prevail, compassion will prevail, laughter will prevail, love, caring, sharing will prevail. Because we are made for goodness. We are made for love.

  Desmond Tutu

  Laughter, Caring, Thinking

  Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. December 30, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• History, like beauty, depends largely on the beholder, so when you read that, for example, David Livingstone discovered the Victoria Falls, you might be forgiven for thinking that there was nobody around the Falls until Livingstone arrived on the scene.

  Desmond Tutu

  Fall, Thinking, Example

  Desmond Tutu (1985). “Hope and Suffering”, Eerdmans Publishing Company

  4 Copy quote

• There 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 Tutu

  Justice, Balance, Different

  "Recovering From Apartheid" by Tina Rosenberg, www.newyorker.com. November 18, 1996.

  7 Copy quote

• True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible. We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer. We have to accept that we do what we do for generations past, present and yet to come. That is what makes a community a community or a people a people-for better or for worse.

  Desmond Tutu

  Nursing, Past, People

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Desmond Tutu

  Peace, Heaven, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be - eagles, not chickens.

  Desmond Tutu

  Inspirational, Graduation, Beautiful

  "Desmond Tutu: 'And God Says to All of Us, You Are No Chicken; You Are an Eagle'". Desmond Tutu's commencement address at Brandeis University, www.beliefnet.com. 2000.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Desmond Tutu

  Keys, Community, Problem

  4 Copy quote

• Many people ask me what I have learned from all of the experiences in my life, and I say unhesitatingly: People are wonderful. It is true. People really are wonderful.

  Desmond Tutu

  Life, People, Wonderful

  Desmond Tutu (2011). “God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Times”, p.97, Random House

  4 Copy quote

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Share, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Revenge, Self, Forgiving

  4 Copy quote

• God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd rather let us freely go to Hell than be compelled to go to Heaven.

  Desmond Tutu

  Heaven, Hell, Reverence

  Beyers Naudé memorial lecture, August 15, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

• We used to say to the apartheid government: you may have the guns, you may have all this power, but you have already lost. Come: join the winning side. His Holiness and the Tibetan people are on the winning side.

  Desmond Tutu

  Gun, Winning, Government

  "Dalai Lama honours Tintin and Tutu", BBC News, June 2, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• Freedom and liberty lose out by default because good people are not vigilant.

  Desmond Tutu

  People, Liberty, Default

  Desmond Tutu, Mothobi Mutloatse, John Webster (1984). “Hope and suffering: sermons and speeches”, W.B. Eerdmans, 1984

  4 Copy quote

• We who advocate peace are becoming an irrelevance when we speak peace. The government speaks rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention, and death.

  Desmond Tutu

  Dog, Irrelevance, Government

  Sunday Times Magazine, June 08, 1986.

  7 Copy quote

• What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into license, into being irresponsible. Perhaps we did not realise just how apartheid has damaged us so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong.

  Desmond Tutu

  Rights, Lost, Apartheid

  "Desmond Tutu Turns 75". www.news24.com. October 06, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• I am deeply moved by the warmth and courage of the Canadian people which I felt so strongly during my recent visit to your country. Your support of the struggle against apartheid restored me in my journey home and reassured me that many just people around the world are with us.

  Desmond Tutu

  Country, Struggle, Home

  9 Copy quote

Page 15 of 21

First

← Prev

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin