519 Quotes by Desmond Tutu

The moment our dignity is undermined, we get up in arms and want to see our dignity restored - especially if we are humiliated.

Love is much more demanding than law.

Having looked the past in the eye, having asked for forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past—not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us.

I said yes, and Tutu said, 'He's not very articulate,' which he isn't. He said, 'Is he the most loved man in the world?' I said yes. 'Who is the most loved woman?' Mother Teresa was still alive at the time, so I said her. He replied, 'Yes, and what are these people? These people are good. And why do we love them? Because they warm us. They warm us.'

We are living in an historic moment. We are each called to take part in a great transformation. Our survival as a species is threatened by global warming, economic meltdown, and an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. Yet these threats offer an opportunity to awaken as an interconnected and beloved community.

A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.

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.

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

Most poor people I know are proud and really want not a handout but a hand up. They do have an inherent pride and dignity, and we should treat them as those who have fallen on bad days.