Desmond Tutu Quotes

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You don't have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.

~ Desmond Tutu

We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

~ Desmond Tutu

Though wrong gratifies in the moment, good yields its gifts over a lifetime.

~ Desmond Tutu

Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.

~ Desmond Tutu

It may be a procession of faithful failures that enriches the soil of godly success. Faithful actions are not religious acts. They are not even necessary actions undertaken by people of faith. Faithful actions, whether they are marked by success or they end in failure, are actions that are compelled by goodness.

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.

~ Desmond Tutu

It is a remarkable feat to be able to see past the inhumanity of the behavior and recognize the humanity of the person committing the atrocious acts. This is not weakness. This is heroic strength, the noblest strength of the human spirit.

~ Desmond Tutu

All modern humans are related to what scientists call Mitochondrial Eve. This refers to our common matrilineal ancestor. She lived approximately 200,000 years ago and depending on how you estimate the length of a generation, we are only 5,000 to 10,000 generations from one another. To put it another way, each of us is a cousin of one another at most 10,000 times removed. And yes, Mitochondrial Eve lived in Africa, so, in a very real way, we are all Africans.

~ Desmond Tutu

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

I'm actually very humbled listening to His Holiness,' the Archbishop said, 'because I've frequently mentioned to people the fact of his serenity and his calm and joyfulness. We would probably have said 'in spite of' the adversity, but it seems like he's saying 'because of' the adversity that this has evolved for him.

~ Desmond Tutu

Symptoms of chronic stress are feelings of fragmentation and of chasing after time - of not being able to be present. What we are looking for is a settled, joyful state of being, and we need to give this state space. The Archbishop once told me that people often think he needs time to pray and reflect because he is a religious leader. He said those who must live in the marketplace - business people, professionals and workers - need it even more.

~ Desmond Tutu

We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.

~ Desmond Tutu

Discovering more joy does not, save us from th inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.

~ Desmond Tutu

The fact is, rape is utterly commonplace in all our cultures. It is part of the fabric of everyday life, yet we all act as if it’s something shocking and extraordinary whenever it hits the headlines. We remain silent, and so we condone it…Until rape, and the structures – sexism, inequality, tradition – that make it possible, are part of our dinner-table conversation with the next generation, it will continue. Is it polite and comfortable to talk about it? No. Must we anyway? Yes.”‘To protect our children, we must talk to them about rape

~ Desmond Tutu

When you set out to change the world, the job seems insurmountable, but each of us can do his or her small part to effect change. We change the world when we choose to create a world of forgiveness in our own hearts and minds.

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

This is what healing demands. Behavior that is hurtful, shameful, abusive, or demeaning must be brought into the fierce light of truth, and truth can be brutal.

~ Desmond Tutu

We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (...) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.

~ Desmond Tutu

If you are able to talk about your life and the joys and sorrows you have experienced, if you know your story, you are much more likely to be a skillful parent.

~ Desmond Tutu

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.

~ Desmond Tutu

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. - God Has a Dream, p. 86.

~ Desmond Tutu

The way to understand any enemy is to realize that, from his perspective, he is not a villain but a hero.

~ Desmond Tutu

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

~ Desmond Tutu

So often when people hear about the suffering in our world, they feel guilty, but rarely does guilt actually motivate action like empathy or compassion. Guilt paralyzes and causes us to deny and avoid what makes us feel guilty. The goal is to replace our guilt with generosity. We all have a natural desire to help and to care, and we simply need to allow ourselves to give from our love without self-reproach. We each must do what we can. This is all that God asks of us. - , God Has a Dream, p. 87-88

~ Desmond Tutu

The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives fresh water, but it has no outlet, so it doesn't pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And that's why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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.

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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.

~ Desmond Tutu

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.

~ Desmond Tutu

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

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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

~ Desmond Tutu

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