Desmond Tutu Quotes

If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn’t worship that God.

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

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

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

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?"

An abusive relationship should be easy to identify though often one of the most difficult to end.

Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

The only separation the Bible knows is between believers on the one hand and unbelievers on the other. Any other kind of separation, division, disunity is of the devil. It is evil and from sin.

Ubuntu tells us that we can create a more peaceful world by striving for goodness in each moment, wherever we are.

There are people who go to bed hungry, and that is unconscionable.

If I diminish you, I diminish myself

Peace without justice is an impossibility.

People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful.

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

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

God is patient with us to become the God's children he wants us to be but you really can see him weeping.

Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion.

Most of the leading figures of the Old Testament were polygamists. Abraham had several wives and concubines. If they wanted, they could say this was approved in the Bible.

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

I wish that we did have a magic wand which we could wave and hey presto! Magic! Unfortunately life is not like that.

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

Ubuntu really says if you want to be nice to yourself, start in a way by being nice to the other.

When people decide they want to be free, there is nothing that can stop them.

If we succeed in empowering girls, we'll succeed in everything else.

I pray that politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth with dignity and love.

We must not only speak about forgiveness and reconciliation, we must act on these principles.

We seek a restorative justice, not a retributive justice.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

My vote is my secret.

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

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.

I have struggled against tyranny. I didn't do that in order to substitute another.

All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others

Nothing is too much trouble for Love.

There will be no future without forgiveness. Any process of peace is bound to collapse if this is missing. There is no way peace and stability can come through the gun of vengeance.

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.

Instead of growing old gracefully, at home with my family - reading and writing and praying and thinking - too much of my time has been spent at airports and in hotels.

We can be human only together. A person is a person to other persons. We so desperately long for all of us to learn that we are meant for one another. We are meant for complementarity.

This is a moral universe, which means that, despite all the evidence that seems to be to the contrary, there is no way that evil and injustice and oppression and lies can have the last word.

I'd rather go to hell than worship a homophobic God.

We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.

You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God.

I want my commitment to ending girl marriage to be equal to my commitment to ending apartheid.

In terms of the New Testament the Jews must suffer, therefore we will put it into practice if we will in charge and there will be no sympathy for the Jews when the blacks take over.

It is for real that injustice and oppression will not have the last word. There was a time when Hitler looked like he was going to vanquish all of Europe, and where is he now?

I am not an afterthought I am not an accident.

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

You are not an afterthought, you are not an accident.

I'm coming to believe more and more in the truth that everything we do has consequences. A good deed doesn't just evaporate and disappear.

We will only truly be free when those in bondage are finally free