Desmond Tutu Quotes & Sayings

I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time ... I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better. — Desmond Tutu

You must show the world that you abhor fighting. — Desmond Tutu

The leaders that the world admires seem almost all to be people who haven't had things quite so smooth or easy in their lives. — Desmond Tutu

Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of what has happened when you are treated unfairly. Forgiveness is not pretending that things are other than the way they are. — Desmond Tutu

But just as we do not forgive for others, we also do not forgive for God. — Desmond Tutu

We are all connected. What unites us is our common humanity. I don't want to oversimplify things - but the suffering of a mother who has lost her child is not dependent on her nationality, ethnicity or religion. White, black, rich, poor, Christian, Muslim or Jew - pain is pain - joy is joy. — Desmond Tutu

Poverty - the greatest cause of human suffering on the planet - is itself exacerbated by conflict, competition for resources, injustice, even the global downturn and climate change. Diseases like AIDS, TB and malaria cannot be tackled without adequate resources. So you see everything is connected. In order to address any major cause of human suffering, we have to work together across many fronts. — Desmond Tutu

Transformation begins in you, wherever you are, whatever has happened, however you are suffering. Transformation is always possible. We do not heal in isolation. When we reach out and connect with one another - when we tell the story, name the hurt, grant forgiveness, and renew or release the relationship - our suffering begins to transform. — Desmond Tutu

The truth of who we are is that we are because we belong. — 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

Much depends on your attitude. If you are filled with negative judgment and anger, then you will feel separate from other people. You will feel lonely. But if you have an open heart and are filled with trust and friendship, even if you are physically alone, even living a hermit's life, you will never feel lonely. — Desmond Tutu

In order to truly forgive oneself, one must either explicitly or implicitly acknowledge that one's behavior was wrong and accept responsibility or blame for such behavior. Without these elements, self-forgiveness is irrelevant and pseudo self-forgiveness becomes likely. — Desmond Tutu

I'm not an optimist; I'm a prisoner of hope. — 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

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God's children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God. — Desmond Tutu

I think that because this is a moral universe, then right will prevail, goodness will prevail, compassion will prevail, laughter will prevail, love, caring, sharing will prevail. Because we are made for goodness. We are made for love. — Desmond Tutu

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. — 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

A jealous person is doubly unhappy-over what he has, which is judged inferior, and over which he has not, which is judged superior. Such a person is doubly removed from knowing the true blessing of creation. — Desmond Tutu

I don't know any religion that promotes violence. It is the adherents of whatever religion. — Desmond Tutu

There is a story ... which is fairly well known, told about when missionaries came to Africa, that they had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. And then they said, "Let us pray," and we dutifully shut our eyes. And when we opened them, why, they now had the land and we had the Bible. — Desmond Tutu

Climate change: Never before in history have human beings been called on to act collectively in defence of the Earth — Desmond Tutu

I would hope that wherever I was I would be me. I have been influenced by some wonderful people who showed me that there is an integral relationship between faith and life at home. Evil is evil, repression is repression anywhere. And if it is not consistent with what one believes is God's will, then I would hope that one would be able to witness it, and there are wonderful people who do so in very great risks to themselves. — Desmond Tutu

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

Reconciliation is a long process. We don't have the kind of race clashes that we thought would happen. What we have is xenophobia, and it's very distressing. But maybe you ought to be lenient with us. We've been free for just 12 years. — Desmond Tutu

I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone ... I think, myself, that it is an obscenity ... — Desmond Tutu

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

We mustn't romanticize suffering. It can turn people bitter and hard, although it does seem to have been almost indispensable in making people into the kind of leaders that we admire. — Desmond Tutu

We give kudos to people who have succeeded. We don't care in what they succeeded as long as they succeeded. The worst thing that can happen to anybody in this cultural environment is to fail. — Desmond Tutu

When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal. — Desmond Tutu

When we are uncaring, when we lack compassion, when we are unforgiving, we will always pay the price for it. It is not, however, we alone who suffer. Our whole community suffers, and ultimately our whole world suffers. We are made to exist in a delicate network of interdependence. We are sisters and brothers, whether we like it or not. To treat anyone as if they were less than human, less than a brother or a sister, no matter what they have done, is to contravene the very laws of our humanity. And those who shred the web of interconnectedness cannot escape the consequences of their actions. In — Desmond Tutu

One of the things that people sense is that you are not doing this for self-glorification, you are doing it for the sake of others. The Dalai Lama has been in exile for so many years, yet the Chinese are running scared of him. — Desmond Tutu

I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular. — 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? — Desmond Tutu

You have to understand that the Bible is really a library of books and it has different categories of material. There are certain parts which you have to say no to. The Bible accepted slavery. St Paul said women should not speak in church at all and there are people who have used that to say women should not be ordained. There are many things that you shouldn't accept. — Desmond Tutu

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

Our common experience in fact is the opposite - that the past, far from disappearing or lying down and being quiet, has an embarrassing and persistent way of returning and haunting us unless it has in fact been dealt with adequately. Unless we look the beast in the eye we find it has an uncanny habit of returning to hold us hostage. — Desmond Tutu

I would like to share with you two simple truths: there is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one un-deserving of forgiveness. — Desmond Tutu

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

It makes no sense to invest in [fossil fuel] companies that undermine our future — Desmond Tutu

The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life. — Desmond Tutu

We must return to the fundamentals; the fundamentals being that you count. That is where you start from. That you count; you matter for God. That is a fantastic realization, and one that very few of us actually get to accept. — 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

Isn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems - poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict - that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation?" [The Communion, which] "used to be known for embodying the attribute of comprehensiveness, of inclusiveness, where we were meant to accommodate all and diverse views, saying we may differ in our theology but we belong together as sisters and brothers" now seems "hell-bent on excommunicating one another. God must look on and God must weep. — Desmond Tutu

When we look at a conflict, it is so often rooted in injustice, prejudice, competition for resources, poverty, poor governance and corruption. — Desmond Tutu

Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

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

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

Love your enemy; it will ruin his reputation. — Desmond Tutu

The destruction of the earth's environment is the human rights challenge of our time. — Desmond Tutu

I am a strong supporter of the recent extradition proceedings against General Pinochet. It would be quite intolerable that the perpetrator should decide not only whether he should get amnesty but that no one else should have the right to question the grounds on which he had so granted himself amnesty and for what offense. — Desmond Tutu

As long as we fail to face up to the past and deal with it accordingly, the future will smack of corruption. — Desmond Tutu

A leader is someone you are not disappointed in placing trust in. When that person makes suggestions, you are inclined to trust [them]. Often it is people who have been there [in a similar situation to the people he or she is leading]. They would generally be people who are ready to take the risks themselves. Most leaders would be people who don't ever give commands and remain at home and let the foot soldiers be the ones who bear the brunt. — Desmond Tutu

To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice. — Desmond Tutu

We would like to see you departing peacefully. — Desmond Tutu

God says, "Please, please help me realize this dream." And some of God's best collaborators are the young, because you dream. You dream God's dream. — 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

Just as I need other human beings in order to learn from them, so I also need their trust. If we aren't aware of that, if we fail to take it to heart and instead betray other people's trust, things will go badly with us. — Desmond Tutu

To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralysing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar. — Desmond Tutu

I will never tell anyone to pick up a gun. But I will pray for the man who picks up a gun, pray that he will be less cruel than he might otherwise have been. — Desmond Tutu

To forgive is to abandon your right to pay back the predator in his own coin, but it is the loss that Liberates. — Desmond Tutu

Child of God, known by name and whose very hairs are numbered. Praise and adore God and thank him for ever and ever. Amen. — Desmond Tutu

There would be no call for ecological campaigning had nature not been exploited and abused. We experience the ground now bringing forth thistles as soil erosion devastates formerly arable land and deserts overtake fertile farms. Rivers and the atmosphere are polluted thoughtlessly and we are fearful of the consequences of a depleted ozone layer and the devastation of the greenhouse effect. We are not quite at home in our world, and somewhere in each of us there is a nostalgia for a paradise that has been lost. — Desmond Tutu

We prayed earnestly that God would bless our land and would confound the machinations of the children of darkness. There had been so many moments in the past, during the dark days of apartheid's vicious awfulness, when we had preached, "This is God's world and God is in charge!" Sometimes, when evil seemed to be on the rampage and about to overwhelm goodness, one had held on to this article of faith by the skin of one's teeth. It was a kind of theological whistling in the dark and one was frequently tempted to whisper in God's ear, "For goodness' sake, why don't You make it more obvious that You are in charge? — Desmond Tutu

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge. — Desmond Tutu

Forgiveness is the grace by which you enable the other person to get up and get up with dignity, to begin anew. — Desmond Tutu

Forgiving is a gift to the forgiver as well as to the perpetrator. — Desmond Tutu

I mean in the South African case, many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community, people who went to church on Sunday, every Sunday. — Desmond Tutu

We don't want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil. — Desmond Tutu

in the sentiment of Mahatma Gandhi, when we practice the law of an eye for an eye, we all end up blind. — Desmond Tutu

Look at Nelson Mandela. Why did people want to follow him? He's a lousy speaker. If he hadn't got all the other things, you wouldn't spend time listening to him. But people actually don't listen to what he's saying, in a way. They are listening to him because he has communicated that he is ready to put his life on the line. — Desmond Tutu

One might go on to say that perhaps justice fails to be done only if the concept we entertain of justice is retributive justice, whose chief goal is to be punitive, so that the wronged party is really the state, something impersonal, which has little consideration for the real victims and almost none for the perpetrator. We contend that there is another kind of justice, restorative justice, which was characteristic of traditional African jurisprudence. Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment. In the spirit of ubuntu, the central concern is the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, a seeking to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator, who should be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense. — Desmond Tutu

White people found that freedom was indeed indivisible. We had kept saying in the dark days of apartheid's oppression that white South Africans would never be truly free until we blacks were free as well. Many thought it was just another Tutu slogan, irresponsible as all his others had been. Today they were experiencing it as a reality. I used to refer to an intriguing old film The Defiant Ones, in which Sidney Poitier was one of the stars. Two convicts escape from a chain gang. They are manacled together, the one white, the other black. They fall into a ditch with slippery sides. The one convict claws his way nearly to the top and out of the ditch but cannot make it because he is bound to his mate, who has been left at the bottom in the ditch. The only way they can make it is together as they strive up and up and up together and eventually make their way over the side wall and out. — Desmond Tutu

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

Our Lord wanted us to be Christ-like. Christ-like doesn't mean not having faults. It means that you do actually have a capacity to draw out the good that is in others. — Desmond Tutu

When we ignore the pain, it grows bigger and bigger, and like an abscess that is never drained, eventually it will rupture. When that happens, it can reach into every area of our lives - our health, our families, our jobs, our friendships, our faith, and our very ability to feel joy may be diminished by the fallout from resentments, anger, and hurts that are never named. — Desmond Tutu

There is no religion in fact that I know that encourages or propagates violence in that its adherents should carry out. — 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

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

The quality of human life on our planet is nothing more than the sum total of our daily interactions with one another. Each time we help, and each time we harm, we have a dramatic impact on our world. — Desmond Tutu

Without forgiveness, there is no future. Forgiveness is not nebulous, impractical and idealistic. It's thoroughly realistic. It's real political in the long run. — 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

My vote is my secret. — Desmond Tutu

Love is universal. You don't have to tell somebody that loving is better than hating. You don't have to believe in God to know that stealing is bad. All of God's children and their different faiths help to realize the immensity of God. No faith contains the whole truth about God. And certainly Christians don't have a corner on God. All of us belong to God. — Desmond Tutu

Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings. — Desmond Tutu

Somewhere deep inside us we seem to know that we are destined for something better than strife. — Desmond Tutu

When I feel ashamed, it means I feel there isn't just something wrong with what I've done, there is something wrong with who I am. Shame is often a hidden emotion and it can be paralyzing in its power. — 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

I believe history teaches us a categorical lesson: that once a people are determined to become free, then nothing in the world can stop them reaching their goal. — 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

One of the things we might want to learn when considering the failings of others is not to gloat because someone else has tripped up. — Desmond Tutu

Too many people think that reconciliation means you soft-pedal differences. — Desmond Tutu

Giving the emotion a name is the way we come to understand how what happened affected us. After we've told the facts of what happened, we must face our feelings. We are each hurt in our own unique ways, and when we give voice to this pain, we begin to heal it. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God. — Desmond Tutu

We spend billions on banks when we know that a fraction of this money could save all the children in the world. — Desmond Tutu

You are the indispensable agent of change. You should not be daunted by the magnitude of the task before you. Your contribution can inspire others, embolden others who are timid, to stand up for the truth in the midst of a welter of distortion, propaganda, and deceit; stand up for human rights where these are being violated with impunity; stand up for justice, freedom, and love where they are trampled underfoot by injustice, oppression, hatred, and harsh cruelty; stand up for human dignity and decency at times when these are in desperately short supply. God calls on us to be his partners to work for a new kind of society where people count; where people matter more than things, more than possessions; where human life is not just respected but positively revered; where people will be secure and not suffer from the — Desmond Tutu

What about evil, you may ask? Aren't some people just evil, just monsters, and aren't such people just unforgivable? I do believe there are monstrous and evil acts, but I do not believe those who commit such acts are monsters or evil. To relegate someone to the level of monster is to deny that person's ability to change and to take away that person's accountability for his or her actions and behavior. — Desmond Tutu

I want us to see a resurgence, a revival, a renaissance of so many of the wonderful attributes and values that Africa has. You know we have had a jurisprudence, a penology in Africa which is not retributive. We've had a jurisprudence which was restorative. When people quarreled in the traditional setting, the main intention was not to punish the miscreant but to restore good relations. For Africa is concerned, or was concerned, about relationship, about the wholeness of relationship. That is something we can bring to the world, a world that is polarized, a world that is fragmented, a world that destroys people. — Desmond Tutu