Desmond Tutu Quotes

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

God is not a diversion.

in the sentiment of Mahatma Gandhi, when we practice the law of an eye for an eye, we all end up blind.

In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t.

God's 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.

Each of us has the capacity to commit the wrongs against others that were committed against us. Although I might say, “I would never . . .” genuine humility will answer, “Never say never.” Rather say, “I hope that, given the same set of circumstances, I would not . . .” But can we ever really know?

When we can accept both our humanity and the perpetrator's we can write a new story. One in which we are no longer cast as a victim, but a survivor, even perhaps a hero.

But suffering from a life-threatening disease also helped me have a different attitude and perspective. It has given a new intensity to life, for I realize how much I used to take for granted-the love and devotion of my wife, the laughter and playfulness of my grandchildren, the glory of a splendid sunset, the dedication of my colleagues. The disease has helped me acknowledge my own mortality, with deep thanksgiving for the extraordinary things that have happened in my life, not least in recent times. What a spectacular vindication it has been, in the struggle against apartheid, to live to see freedom come, to have been involved in finding the truth and reconciling the differences of those who are the future of our nation.

Forgiveness is truly the grace by which we enable another person to get up, and get up with dignity, to begin anew.

What about evil, you may ask? Aren’t some people just evil, just monsters, and aren’t such people just unforgivable? I do believe there are monstrous and evil acts, but I do not believe those who commit such acts are monsters or evil. To relegate someone to the level of monster is to deny that person’s ability to change and to take away that person’s accountability for his or her actions and behavior.

My first point seems overwhelmingly simple: that the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong.

I am fifty-two years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute — a white skin.

Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.

To be impartial... is indeed to have taken sides already... with the status quo.

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't.