Desmond Tutu Quotes

As long as we fail to face up to the past and deal with it accordingly, the future will smack of corruption.

There are people who go to bed hungry, and that is unconscionable.

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

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it

If we are going to bring about change, then men, for goodness sake, stand up and stand for the right. And I say, ‘power to the women.

When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.

Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

Climate change: Never before in history have human beings been called on to act collectively in defence of the Earth

Ubuntu tells us that we can create a more peaceful world by striving for goodness in each moment, wherever we are.

To forgive is to abandon your right to pay back the predator in his own coin, but it is the loss that Liberates.

We are made for loving. If we don’t love, we will be like plants without water.

Men and boys, we show our manhood through the way we treat our women. Our wives, our sisters, our mothers.

We can no longer continue feeding our addiction to fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow. For there will be no tomorrow.

It makes no sense to invest in [fossil fuel] companies that undermine our future

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

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

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.

Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.

We need other human beings in order to be human.

Give young people a greater voice. They are the future and they are much wiser than we give them credit for.

Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.

If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is WOMEN!

I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place.

In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.

To treat anyone as if they were less than human, less than a brother or a sister, no matter what they have done, is to contravene the very laws of our humanity.

If you recall the happiest moments in your life, they are all from when you were doing something for somebody else.

All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others

We spend billions on banks when we know that a fraction of this money could save all the children in the world.

Love your enemy; it will ruin his reputation.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.

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

Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"

The fundamental law of human beings is interdependence. A person is a person through other persons.

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

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

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can't be neutral.

We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our Earth.

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument.

To remain neutral in situations of injustice is to be complicit in that injustice.

I can't control what happens to me, but I can control how I respond to it.

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Peace without justice is an impossibility.

Love is much more demanding than law.

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