519 Quotes by Desmond Tutu

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.'

In the Bible, we first encounter God when he sides with a bunch of slaves against a powerful Pharaoh, an act of grace freely given.

The devastation wreaked by landmines is not only horrendous but immoral

What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into license, into being irresponsible. Perhaps we did not realise just how apartheid has damaged us so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong.

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'

There is no peace in South Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice. There can be no real peace and security until there is first justice enjoyed by all inhabitants of this 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 inevitable righteousness, justice, wholesomeness, fullness of life, participation in decision making, goodness, laughter, joy, compassion, sharing, and reconciliation.

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

And you remember the rainbow in the Bible is the sign of peace. The rainbow is the sign of prosperity. We want peace, prosperity and justice and we can have it when all the people of God, the rainbow people of God, work together.

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