Desmond Tutu Quotes

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.

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.

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

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

You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can't be neutral.

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

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

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

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.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

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

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

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

My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity especially on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma

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

Give young people a greater voice. They are the future and they are much wiser than we give them credit for.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

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

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

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

A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.

We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action.

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

I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place.

I am fifty-two years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth I cannot vote...

True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute.

How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?

But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.

Without forgiveness, there's no future.

Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'

It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.

Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.

Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.

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

You 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.

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

It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

I'm absolutely, utterly, and completely certain that God wouldn't be homophobic. I'd much rather go to hell - I really would much rather go to hell - than go to a homophobic heaven.

Do your little bit of good where you are.

In the Bible, we first encounter God when he sides with a bunch of slaves against a powerful Pharaoh, an act of grace freely given.

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

The moment our dignity is undermined, we get up in arms and want to see our dignity restored - especially if we are humiliated.

If we have loved well while we were alive, there is life after death here-our love will go on for generations.

Is Zionism racism? I would say yes. It's a policy that to me looks like it has very many parallels with racism. The effect is the same. Whether you call it that or not is in a sense irrelevant.