Desmond Tutu Quotes

• I have struggled against tyranny. I didn’t do that in order to substitute one tyranny with another.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

• We don’t want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can’t improve something that is intrinsically evil.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Power

  Tags in Stand Up

• Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You don’t have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Religion

• We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in God

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Inspirational

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Truth, Wisdom

  Tags in Oppressor, Situations

• You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Shoulders, Crowd

• When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it’s again not people who are intrinsically evil.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Genocide, Intrinsically

• When we see the face of a child, we think of the future. We think of their dreams about what they might become, and what they might accomplish.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Accomplish, Face

• We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Diversity, Characterized

• We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Goodness, Compassion

• Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Imperative, Universal

• The universe can take quite a while to deliver.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Deliver, Universe

• People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Despised, Weak

• Oh, 1994, April 27. There won’t be a day like that ever again. I mean, the sky was blue, with a blueness that had never been there before.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sky, Mean

• It’s a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mandela, Africa

• Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Diversity, Image

• 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.

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Encounter, Freely

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

  Desmond Tutu

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Horrors, Committed

Desmond Tutu (80)

Birth:	7th October, 1931
Nationality:	South African
Profession:	Activist, Bishop

About

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa. He is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop. He has campaigned to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty, racism, sexism, the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning, homophobia and transphobia. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1986; the Pacem in Terris Award in 1987; the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999; the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2007; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu travelled to King's College London, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees in theology.

Related Authors

• Harriet Tubman
• Ammon Hennacy
• Ewan MacColl
• Joe the Plumber
• Abbie Hoffman
• Thomas Wentworth Higginson
• Peter Tork
• Daisaku Ikeda
• Letty Cottin Pogrebin
• Tariq Ali

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 17th January

Births

• 1940 - Tabare Vazquez
• 1942 - Muhammad Ali
• 1937 - Alain Badiou
• 1600 - Pedro Calderon de la Barca
• 1899 - Robert M. Hutchins

Deaths

• 1941 - Thomas R. Kelly
• 2005 - Zhao Ziyang
• 1893 - Rutherford B. Hayes
• 1964 - T. H. White
• 1996 - Barbara Jordan