Quotes by Desmond Tutu - Page 11

Where we come from does not determine who we can become. What we look like places no limits on what we can achieve. We should all have the right to express ourselves, all have the right to be heard, all have the right to be what we can be: To reach for the sky and touch the stars. No matter who we are, no matter whether we are man or woman, or rich or poor: My voice, my right. My voice counts.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Men
Rich Or Poor
Stars
Copy Quote
Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Children
Educational
Real
Copy Quote
You will find that the Bible, if you want it to, will justify many things. St. Paul had a very male chauvinistic view of women. He would say things like women must not talk in church, must cover their heads, they mustn't talk and must remember that it was a woman who first tempted and this whole mess started because women messed us up. So you can read it in such a way that it justifies polygamy.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Church
Views
Way
Copy Quote
Poverty - the greatest cause of human suffering on the planet - is itself exacerbated by conflict, competition for resources, injustice, even the global downturn and climate change. Diseases like AIDS, TB and malaria cannot be tackled without adequate resources. So you see everything is connected. In order to address any major cause of human suffering, we have to work together across many fronts.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Competition
Order
Suffering
Copy Quote
We must embrace our differences, even celebrate our diversity. We must glory in the fact that God created each of us as unique human beings. God created us different, but God did not create us for separation. God created us different that we might recognize our need for one another. We must reverence our uniqueness, reverence everything that makes us what we are: our language, our culture, our religious tradition.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Differences
Religious
Unique
Copy Quote
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 / Activist
Beautiful
Gay
Inspirational Love
Copy Quote
You tend to think that your time is either the best or the worst, and then when you have a sense of history, you'll realize actually, no, there were times things were quite gusty in the world. I mean, just think, nowadays most people will say they support the advancement of women, woman has been equal, the fact that we're so aware of the gustiness, in a sense, also speaks about the heightening of our own sensitivity.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Mean
People
Thinking
Copy Quote
Africans believe in something that is difficult to render in English. We call it ubuntu, botho. It means the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humaneness, gentleness, hospitality, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Believe
Compassion
Mean
Copy Quote
We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say, '...we shouldn't have done that.' We must remember, my friends, that we have been given a wonderful cause. The cause of freedom! And you and I must be those who will walk with heads held high. We will say, 'We used methods that can stand the harsh scrutiny of history.'
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Freedom
Looks
Use
Copy Quote
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 / Activist
Home
Believe
Evil
Copy Quote
He's a tremendous breath of fresh air. The things he [Pope Francis] has done in a short period of time: the fact that he does not live in a huge papal mansion and just dropped by in the dining room where ordinary people have meals. You think of his background, where he didn't use limousines in South America, that he used public transport. I'm so, so thrilled that he is there at this crucial moment in the history of our world.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Air
Our World
Thinking
Copy Quote
A leader is someone you are not disappointed in placing trust in. When that person makes suggestions, you are inclined to trust [them]. Often it is people who have been there [in a similar situation to the people he or she is leading]. They would generally be people who are ready to take the risks themselves. Most leaders would be people who don't ever give commands and remain at home and let the foot soldiers be the ones who bear the brunt.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Home
Feet
People
Copy Quote
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 / Activist
Daughter
Children
Hurt
Struggle
Copy Quote
We must act now and wake up to our moral obligations. The poor and vulnerable are members of God's family and are the most severely affected by droughts, high temperatures, the flooding of coastal cities, and more severe and unpredictable weather events resulting from climate change. We, who should have been responsible stewards preserving our vulnerable, fragile planet home, have been wantonly wasteful through our reckless consumerism, devouring irreplaceable natural resources.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Home
Cities
Should Have
Copy Quote
There's no way in which you can ever win a war against terror. As long as there are conditions in many parts of the world that make people desperate: poverty, disease, ignorance, etc. I hope that we will discover soon, that we can survive, only together. We can prosper only together. And I think people are beginning to realize this, that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think you can have a stable, secure world.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
War
Ignorance
Winning
Copy Quote
We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else's opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Hurt
Mean
Writing
Copy Quote
To travel only a few blocks in his own homeland, an elderly grandfather waits to beg for the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is required to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in the cities, but luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Running
Block
Teenage
Copy Quote
It always comes back to our insecurities, as we say, "Oh, I'm not as good as you." So instead of accepting that perhaps I am not as good as someone else in some ways and being comfortable with who I am as I am, I spend all my time denigrating you, trying to cut you down to my self-perceived size. 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 / Activist
Cutting
Self
Who I Am
Copy Quote
There would be no call for ecological campaigning had nature not been exploited and abused. We experience the ground now bringing forth thistles as soil erosion devastates formerly arable land and deserts overtake fertile farms. Rivers and the atmosphere are polluted thoughtlessly and we are fearful of the consequences of a depleted ozone layer and the devastation of the greenhouse effect. We are not quite at home in our world, and somewhere in each of us there is a nostalgia for a paradise that has been lost.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Home
Ozone
Rivers
Copy Quote
There is no peace in Southern Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice. There can be no real peace and security until there be first justice enjoyed by all the inhabitants of that beautiful land. The Bible knows nothing about peace without justice, for that would be crying "peace, peace, where there is no peace". God's Shalom, peace, involves inevitably righteousness, justice, wholeness, fullness of life, participation in decision-making, goodness, laughter, joy, compassion, sharing and reconciliation.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Beautiful
Laughter
Real
Copy Quote
The heart of the Christian Gospel is precisely that God is the all holy One; the all powerful One is also the One full of mercy and compassion. He is not a neutral God inhabiting some inaccessible Mount Olympus. He is a God who cares about His children and cares enormously for the weak, the poor, the naked, the downtrodden, the despised. He takes their side not because they are good, since many of them are demonstrably not so. He takes their side because He is that kind of God, and they have no one else to champion them.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Children
Christian
Powerful
Copy Quote
Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Healing
Hurt
Real
Copy Quote
I often accompanied my father. I really liked riding with him on his bicycle on Saturdays. He was very fond of fishing. I don’t think I liked fishing. I mean, you had to sit quietly and still, but I enjoyed the ride. And it was fun, it was fun. I mean, as I say, you didn’t go around lugging a deep sense of resentment. We knew, yes, we were deprived. It wasn’t the same thing for white kids, but it was as full a life as you could make it. I mean, we made toys for ourselves with wires, making cars, and you really were exploding with joy!
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Father
Fun
Mean
Copy Quote
One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Country
Thinking
Ubuntu
Copy Quote
I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time. . . I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
Believe
Compassion
Our World
Copy Quote
Isn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems - poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict - that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation? [The Communion, which] used to be known for embodying the attribute of comprehensiveness, of inclusiveness, where we were meant to accommodate all and diverse views, saying we may differ in our theology but we belong together as sisters and brothers [now seems] hell-bent on excommunicating one another. God must look on and God must weep.
Desmond Tutu / Activist
War
Brother
Views
Copy Quote

Related Activist Authors

Zoya Phan
Activist
Zach Wahls
Activist
Monday, Jul 15, 1991
Yuri Kochiyama
Activist
Thursday, May 19, 1921
Sunday, Jun 01, 2014
Yolanda King
Activist
Thursday, Nov 17, 1955
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Winona Laduke
Activist
Tuesday, Aug 18, 1959
William Sloane Coffin
Activist
Sunday, Jun 01, 1924
Wednesday, Apr 12, 2006
Will Davis Campbell
Activist
Friday, Jul 18, 1924
Monday, Jun 03, 2013
Wendy Wright
Activist
Wei Jingsheng
Activist
Saturday, May 20, 1950
Warren Farrell
Activist
Saturday, Jun 26, 1943
Walter Wink
Activist
Tuesday, May 21, 1935
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Vito Russo
Activist
Thursday, Jul 11, 1946
Wednesday, Nov 07, 1990
Urvashi Vaid
Activist
Wednesday, Oct 08, 1958
Unita Blackwell
Activist
Saturday, Mar 18, 1933
Tom Fitton
Activist

View All Activist Quotes

Top Authors

Charles Spurgeon
Preacher
Thursday, Jun 19, 1834
Sunday, Jan 31, 1892
Robert Frost
Poet
Thursday, Mar 26, 1874
Tuesday, Jan 29, 1963
Billy Graham
Evangelist
Thursday, Nov 07, 1918
Kanye West
Songwriter
Wednesday, Jun 08, 1977
Thursday, Jun 04, 2015
Pope Francis
Thursday, Dec 17, 1936
Billy Graham
Professional Wrestler
Monday, Jun 07, 1943
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist
Wednesday, May 25, 1803
Thursday, Apr 27, 1882
Ernest Hemingway
Author
Friday, Jul 21, 1899
Sunday, Jul 02, 1961
Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Donald Trump
45Th President Of The United States
Friday, Jun 14, 1946
H. L. Mencken
Journalist
Sunday, Sep 12, 1880
Sunday, Jan 29, 1956
Mahatma Gandhi
Civil Rights Leader
Saturday, Oct 02, 1869
Friday, Jan 30, 1948
Marcus Aurelius
Roman Emperor
Saturday, Apr 26, 0121
Friday, Mar 17, 0180
Benjamin Franklin
Founding Father Of The United States
Sunday, Jan 17, 1706
Saturday, Apr 17, 1790
Socrates
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970

View All Authors

Desmond Tutu Quotes - Page 11

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Activist Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Activist Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page