Tutu And Me Quotes & Sayings

Dad worked in a warehouse when I was little and I didn't see him for three years as he was doing all the overtime God gave him to buy me new ballet shoes, or a new tutu. — Jennifer Ellison

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

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. — Desmond Tutu

Many people ask me what I have learned from all of the experiences in my life, and I say unhesitatingly: People are wonderful. It is true. People really are wonderful. — Desmond Tutu

I am deeply moved by the warmth and courage of the Canadian people which I felt so strongly during my recent visit to your country. Your support of the struggle against apartheid restored me in my journey home and reassured me that many just people around the world are with us. — 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

At home in South Africa I have sometimes said in big meetings where you have black and white together: 'Raise your hands!' Then I have said: 'Move your hands,' and I've said 'Look at your hands - different colors representing different people. You are the Rainbow People of God. — Desmond Tutu

Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge. — 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

People are able to justify immense cruelty and say that it is something that is sanctioned by their faith. — Desmond Tutu

The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions — Desmond Tutu

When we shot "Cry Freedom," I wasn't even allowed in South Africa. They told me I could come but I wasn't going to leave. I had heavy death threats at that time. So we shot in Zimbabwe.In 1995, I had the privilege and the honor to meet Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela the same day: I had breakfast with Desmond Tutu and lunch with Nelson Mandela. Then I had the good fortune to have Mr. Mandela actually come to my house in California.here's been a tremendous amount of change. — Denzel Washington

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects. — Desmond Tutu

Well dress me up in a tutu, put my on a unicycle, and call me Caroline the Dancing Bear. You're a fugging dumper — John Green

And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be-eagles, not chickens. — Desmond Tutu

Theology reminded me that, however diabolical the act, it did not turn the perpetrator into a demon. We had to distinguish between the deed and the perpetrator, between the sinner and the sin, to hate and condemn the sin while being filled with compassion for the sinner. — Desmond Tutu

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it — Desmond Tutu

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

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. — Desmond Tutu

We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our 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

Each of us is precious to God because each of us has their name written on the palms of God's hands. And God says there are no outsiders - black, white, yellow, short, tall, young, old, rich, poor, gay, lesbian, straight - everyone. All belong. And God says, I have only you to help me realize my dream. Help me. — Desmond Tutu

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? — Desmond Tutu

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

I think we need to grow in our self-assurance that is not scared of being challenged, that the truth we uphold can stand up to the closest possible scrutiny. — Desmond Tutu

I don't struggle to forgive people. I find it quite easy to forgive people for the harms that they have inflicted on me. What I do find challenging is to forgive people for the harms they inflict on my daughters and family. So, I find it challenging when I see somebody else experience hurt. I also look at my children and family and then I realize, I don't stand inside their skin and that is for me a forgiveness practice I still need to engage in. — Desmond Tutu

Ignoring Gray Porter is like ignoring an elephant in a tut. A really hot elephant in a tutu ... a very manly tutu. -Jess — Anne Eliot

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

We must stop climate change. And we can, if we use the tactics that worked in South Africa against the worst carbon emitters. — Desmond Tutu

Stuff me in a tutu and let's screen experimental videos all day. — Sam Lipsyte

I am 52 years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth, I cannot vote. — Desmond Tutu

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 ... that is what has upheld the morale of our people, to know that in the end good will prevail. — Desmond Tutu

We need rituals for all traumas and loss, whether it is betrayal or infidelity or violence or murder. Ritual helps us heal, and ritual helped me heal and become ready to consider the person who murdered Angela, his story, his pain. — Desmond Tutu

But suffering from a life-threatening disease also helped me have a different attitude and perspective. It has given a new intensity to life, for I realize how much I used to take for granted-the love and devotion of my wife, the laughter and playfulness of my grandchildren, the glory of a splendid sunset, the dedication of my colleagues. The disease has helped me acknowledge my own mortality, with deep thanksgiving for the extraordinary things that have happened in my life, not least in recent times. What a spectacular vindication it has been, in the struggle against apartheid, to live to see freedom come, to have been involved in finding the truth and reconciling the differences of those who are the future of our nation. — Desmond Tutu

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. — Desmond Tutu

Anger, resentment, lust for revenge, even success through aggressive competitiveness, are corrosive of this good. To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me. It gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them. When uhuru, or freedom and independence, — Desmond Tutu

I don't care if you wear a muu muu or a tutu, you'll still be beautiful."
"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," I joked with him. "And you get extra points for making it rhyme. — Kristen Day

When God grabs you by the scruff of the neck then although theoretically you have a freedom to say 'no', in another sense, actually, you can't say no because it's like Jeremiah. 'God, you have cheated me. You called me to be a prophet against the people that I love, and all that I proclaim is words of doom and judgement.' And yet if I say "I will shut up", I can't. — Desmond Tutu

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. — 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

In human life and in the history of faith, I think, love has a quality of a bedrock reality we discover - adventurers, travelers, each of us, only fitfully apprehending its potential. I take some solace in the fact that I'm not alone in this intuition that the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering notwithstanding, "at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love." That's how Desmond Tutu put it to me, with greater authority than mine from a life that has known extremes of human cruelty one to another. — Krista Tippett

As Desmond Tutu told me on a recent trip to Cape Town, We are only the light bulbs, Richard, and our job is just to remain screwed in! — Richard Rohr

In order to turn around and do something better, we must first escape the vicious circle of self-righteousness and denial. And that calls for the humility to say "I'm sorry. Please forgive me." — 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

That don't look good," Kramisha said. "Not good at all." She paused and then her eyes went from me to Heath, whose attention was so focused on me I swear he didn't look like he would notice if a giant white elephant in a tutu danced around the room. "Ain't that the human kid who was down here before? — Kristin Cast

Saiman reached into the trunk and pulled out a pink tulle tutu.
"No."
"Yes."
"It won't fit."
"Elastic waistband," Saiman said. "It will fit." Curran's grin was pure evil.
"Don't you dare," I told him.
"It's too bad the magic is up," he said. "I'd take pictures."
"Shut up."
"Have no fear, Alpha," Ascanio said. "We'll tell no one."
Kill me, somebody.
Saiman held out the tulle skirt to me.
"Maybe it will work without it."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"If I put this on, it will be ridiculous."
Saiman waved the pink tutu in front of me. Fine. I snatched it out of his hands and pulled it on over my hips.
Ascanio collapsed into a moaning heap of laughter.
"Now what?"
"Move around onstage. It would help if you danced."
Curran was dying. That was the only rational explanation for the noises coming from his direction. — Ilona Andrews

I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy 'cause Desmond Tutu told me, and he's very clever. He said, 'You must free yourself, be more of who you are. Be more crazy.' And I'm going to. — Craig Ferguson

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

When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political, or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. — Desmond Tutu

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

Who can stop climate change? We can. You and you and you, and me. And it is not just that we can stop it, we have a responsibility to do so that began in the genesis of humanity, when God commanded the earliest human inhabitants of the Garden of Eden, "to till it and keep it". To "keep" it; not to abuse it, not to make as much money as possible from it, not to destroy it — Desmond Tutu

Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other. — Desmond Tutu

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

We pray that Aung San Suu Kyi and her country are now on a path to freedom — 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

When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All — Desmond Tutu

If everyone who wants to see an end to poverty, hunger and suffering speaks out, then the noise will be deafening. — Desmond Tutu

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

I would love to know who killed my father. So would my brother." Her next words stunned me and left me breathless. "We want to forgive them. We want to forgive, but we don't know who to forgive. — 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

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. — 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

There is no peace precisely because there has been no justice. As painful and inconvenient as justice may be, we have seen that the alternative allowing accountability to fall by the wayside is worse. — Desmond Tutu

There is no justice in killing in the name of justice. — Desmond Tutu

You might have thought that a world such as ours, so hard-nosed and cynical and brash, would have very little time for transcendence, spiritual values of goodness and compassion, gentleness, and caring, but we actually do experience them. — Desmond Tutu

Goodness is stronger than evil.
Love is stronger than hate.
Light is stronger than darkness.
Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours through Him who loved us. — Desmond Tutu

Is Zionism racism? I would say yes. It's a policy that to me looks like it has very many parallels with racism. The effect is the same. Whether you call it that or not is in a sense irrelevant. — 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

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

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

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

If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is WOMEN! — 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

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

One of the most blasphemous consequences of injustice, especially racist injustice, is that it can make a child of God doubt that he or she is a child of God. — Desmond Tutu

We can enjoy a self-assurance that doesn't depend on the state of things outside ourselves, be it downturns or booms or whatever. — 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

There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time. — 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

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

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.
[Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004] — Desmond Tutu

Life is funny and we are really funny, especially when we get to be hoity toity; we can be so ridiculous. Life is fun. — Desmond Tutu