Quotes by Desmond Tutu

About Desmond Tutu:

Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

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

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

Desmond Tutu

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

Desmond Tutu

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God's children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

Desmond Tutu

But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.

Desmond Tutu

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

Desmond Tutu

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

Desmond Tutu

God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

Desmond Tutu

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

Hate has no place in the house of God.

Desmond Tutu

God is patient with us to become the God's children he wants us to be but you really can see him weeping.

Desmond Tutu

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

For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.

Desmond Tutu

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

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

Desmond Tutu

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

Desmond Tutu

I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.

Desmond Tutu

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?

Desmond Tutu

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

Desmond Tutu

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

Desmond Tutu

Author Bio

  • NameDesmond Tutu
  • DescriptionSouth African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner
  • BornOctober 7, 1931
  • CountrySouth Africa
  • ProfessionAnglican Priest; Activist; Non-fiction Writer
  • AwardsNobel Peace Prize; Presidential Medal Of Freedom; Templeton Prize; Four Freedoms Award - Freedom Of Worship; Giuseppe Motta Medal; Light Of Truth Award; Monismanien Prize; Pacem In Terris Award; Delta Prize For Global Understanding