Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH GCStJ is a South African Anglican cleric and theologian known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa. Inspirational Desmond Tutu quotes will get you through anything when the going gets tough and help you succeed in every aspect of life.
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Most Famous Desmond Tutu Quotes
If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. 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
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. 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
Without forgiveness, there is no future. Desmond Tutu
Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument. Desmond Tutu
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Desmond Tutu
Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened. 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
My father always used to say, Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument. Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right. Desmond Tutu
Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning. 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
My father used to say, don’t raise your voice; improve your argument. Desmond Tutu
Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another. Desmond Tutu
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human. 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
You don’t choose your family, they are God’s gift to you, as you are to them. Desmond Tutu
Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing. Desmond Tutu
We learn from history that we don’t learn from history! Desmond Tutu
When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others. 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
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
Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another. Desmond Tutu
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
Freedom and liberty lose out by default because good people are not vigilant. Desmond Tutu
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Desmond Tutu
A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons. 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
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
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
Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity. Desmond Tutu
We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew. Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things. Desmond Tutu
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. Desmond Tutu
In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t. Desmond Tutu
I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum. 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 are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths. Desmond Tutu
Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes. Desmond Tutu
Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value. Desmond Tutu
Religion is like a knife you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back. Desmond Tutu
I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t. Desmond Tutu
We are made for loving. If we don’t love, we will be like plants without water. Desmond Tutu
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. Desmond Tutu
Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in the world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally. Indeed, God is transforming the world now through us because God loves us. Desmond Tutu
Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice. Desmond Tutu
It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul. 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
You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them. Desmond Tutu
As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities. Desmond Tutu
Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional. Desmond Tutu
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. Desmond Tutu
A person is a person through other persons; you can’t be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships. Desmond Tutu
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. 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
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. Desmond Tutu
There is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep. Desmond Tutu
I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular. Desmond Tutu
Forgiveness does not relieve someone of responsibility for what they have done. Forgiveness does not erase accountability. It is not about turning a blind eye or even turning the other cheek. It is not about letting someone off the hook or saying it is okay to do something monstrous. Forgiveness is simply about understanding that every one of us is both inherently good and inherently flawed. Within every hopeless situation and every seemingly hopeless person lies the possibility of transformation. Desmond Tutu
You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders. Desmond Tutu
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring. Desmond Tutu
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. 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
