Desmond Tutu Quotes

91 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Desmond Tutu
It was relatively easy, we now realize, to categorize countries and nations. You knew who your enemies were and whom you could count on as collaborators and friends. And even more importantly, you had ready-made scapegoats to take the blame when things were going wrong.

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
God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd rather let us freely go to Hell than be compelled to go to Heaven.

Desmond Tutu
Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.

Desmond Tutu
This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw..." Did he say, "I will draw some"? "I will draw some, and tough luck for the others"? He said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all." All! All! All! – Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bush – all! All! All are to be held in this incredible embrace. Gay, lesbian, so-called "straight;" all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won't let us go.

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
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
Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'

Desmond Tutu
If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another's, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.

Desmond Tutu
Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

Desmond Tutu
We refuse to be treated as the doormat for the government to wipe its jackboots on.

Desmond Tutu
The sad problem is that we see ourselves as being quite terribly small. Instead of spending my time being envious, I need to celebrate your and my different gifts, even if mine are perhaps less spectacular than yours.

Desmond Tutu