Quotes by 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.

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

The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives fresh water, but it has no outlet, so it doesnt pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And thats why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.

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 cant say no because its 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 cant.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

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

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.

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

You dont choose your family. They are Gods gift to you, as you are to them.

Gods dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said Let us pray. We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Gods love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

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

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.

Isnt it amazing that we are all made in Gods image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

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

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.