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

I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.

Desmond Tutu

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

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

Desmond Tutu

God is not a Christian.

Desmond Tutu

Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.

Desmond Tutu

When God grabs you by the scruff of the neck then although theoretically you have a freedom to say 'no', in another sense, actually, you can't say no because it's like Jeremiah. 'God, you have cheated me. You called me to be a prophet against the peo...

Desmond Tutu

Though wrong gratifies in the moment, good yields its gifts over a lifetime.

Desmond Tutu

It may be a procession of faithful failures that enriches the soil of godly success. Faithful actions are not religious acts. They are not even necessary actions undertaken by people of faith. Faithful actions, whether they are marked by success or t...

Desmond Tutu

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

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

We learn from history that we don't learn from history!

Desmond Tutu

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

Desmond Tutu

True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute.

Desmond Tutu

My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity especially on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma

Desmond Tutu

The fact is, rape is utterly commonplace in all our cultures. It is part of the fabric of everyday life, yet we all act as if it’s something shocking and extraordinary whenever it hits the headlines. We remain silent, and so we condone it…Until r...

Desmond Tutu

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

Desmond Tutu

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.

Desmond Tutu

A person is a person through other persons. None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order t...

Desmond Tutu

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

Desmond Tutu

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Desmond Tutu

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it - oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

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