Desmond Tutu

Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

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.

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

Isnt it amazing that we are all made in Gods image and yet there is so much diversity among his people

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

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

When we see the face of a child, we think of the future. We think of their dreams about what they might become, and what they might accomplish.

We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose.

In many ways, when you're a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.

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.

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.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

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.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

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

In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.

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.

For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

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.

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

Be nice to whites they need you to rediscover their humanity.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.

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

Our lives are a response to a love that we already have received.

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

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.

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?'

We are made for loving. If we don't love, we will be like plants without water.

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.

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.

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

Arrogance really comes from insecurity, and in the end our feeling that we are bigger than others is really the flip side of our feeling that we are smaller than others.

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't.

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.

Many people would be surprised that, in fact, I'm quite shy.

The worlds forests are a shared stolen treasure that we must put back for our childrens future.

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

God has been incredible in creating us to be persons.

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

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

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

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

God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

You dont choose your family. They are Gods gift to you as you are to them.

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.

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

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

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

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.

For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.

I certainly know that I would not be able to survive if it were not for the fact that I am being upheld by the prayers of so many people.

We would like to see you departing peacefully.

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

To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge not justice.

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

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.

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

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it - oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

Every situation of justice is an occasion where someone is being humiliated and they want to restore their dignity.

Dream Dream And then go for it

A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry. It gives a chance an opportunity to choose well or to choose badly.

Life is more than breath and a heartbeat meaning and purpose are the life of life.

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

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.

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

The simple truth is, we all make mistakes, and we all need forgiveness.

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

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.

Without forgiveness, there's no future.

As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.

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.