Quotes by Desmond Tutu

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together”

“Children are a wonderful gift . . . They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.”

“We in Africa wonder: Can the world outside see the human beings -- or the potential partners -- behind the unrelenting despair?”

“Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

“Sometimes people think (that) to see that we are family is to be sentimental. But one has to say: This is one of the most radical things, actually. When we do what we think is charitable, it isnt anything more than our obligation as family members.”

“Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa -- particularly the forgotten emergencies in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.”

“We have frequently gone into denial when faced with unpleasant, unpalatable facts and now we are hearing from governments in Africa that they are not going into denial but that they are facing up to a horrendous situation forthwith,”

“Full houses at the Assembly Rooms. To keep Michele sweet. Thats basically it.”

“I said yes, and Tutu said, Hes not very articulate, which he isnt. He said, Is he the most loved man in the world? I said yes. Who is the most loved woman? Mother Teresa was still alive at the time, so I said her. He replied, Yes, and what are these people? These people are good. And why do we love them? Because they warm us. They warm us.”

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You dont have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.

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.

My father always used to say, Dont raise your voice. Improve your argument. Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.

A person is a person through other persons.None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.

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

Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.

It may be a procession of faithful failures that enriches the soil of godly success. Faithful actions are not religious acts. They are not even necessary actions undertaken by people of faith. Faithful actions, whether they are marked by success or they end in failure, are actions that are compelled by goodness.

My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity especially on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma