Desmond Tutu quotes - page 8

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)
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. View quote
Desmond Tutu
Catharsis is about cleansing and healing at one and the same time - healing memories and attitudes, healing the spirit and the heart. View quote
Desmond Tutu
Race should not be used to claim privileges and rights for one group, exclusively, which are denied other different groups. Then that is an illegitimate use of race. View quote
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. View quote
Desmond Tutu
Human beings can be awful, but they can also be tremendous. View quote
Desmond Tutu
A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships. View quote
Desmond Tutu
He has a childlike, boyish, impish, mischievousness. And I have to try and make him behave properly, like a holy man! View quote
Desmond Tutu
We refuse to be treated as the doormat for the government to wipe its jackboots on. View quote
Desmond Tutu
We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world. If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land. View quote
Desmond Tutu
Whether Jews like it or not, they are a peculiar people. They can't ever hope to be judged by the same standards which are used for other people. (Desmond Tutu)
People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust. View quote
Desmond Tutu
Isn't it desperately sad that, at a time when we face formidable problems – poverty, HIV/AIDS, conflict – that the Anglican Communion can invest so much energy on disagreements about human sexuality? A communion that used to boast that one of its distinctive characteristics was something called comprehensiveness, that our communion, the Anglican Church, included just about everybody. Even if you had the most weird theology you could come in, you were allowed. And now we, who used to be held up in admiration by many because of this inclusiveness, are now spending time working out how we can excommunicate one another. God looks on and God weeps. God weeps. View quote
Desmond Tutu
[T]here is always the possibility of change. If it happened in South Africa, why can't it happen anywhere? View quote
Desmond Tutu
Forgiveness is one of the key ideas in this world. Forgiveness is not just some nebulous, vague idea that one can easily dismiss. It has to do with uniting people through practical politics. Without forgiveness there is no future. View quote
Desmond Tutu
People marched and demonstrated, and the Berlin Wall fell, and communism was ended. People marched and demonstrated, and apartheid ended. And democracy and freedom were born. And now people are marching, and people are demonstrating, because people are saying no to war! View quote
Desmond Tutu
Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of what has happened when you are treated unfairly. It is opening the door for the other person to have a chance to begin again. Without forgiveness, resentment builds in us, a resentment which turns into hostility and anger. Hatred eats away at our well-being. View quote
Desmond Tutu
I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually. View quote
Desmond Tutu
When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it's again not people who are intrinsically evil. View quote
Desmond Tutu
Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency. View quote
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)
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Desmond Tutu
I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama. Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: "You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian"? I don't think that is the case - because, you see, God is not a Christian. View quote
Desmond Tutu