Desmond Tutu quotes

Born
 7 October 1931, Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa.

Died
26 December 2021.

Occupation
Bishop, social rights activist.

Desmond Tutu was a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid.

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

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.
– Desmond Tutu

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.
– Desmond Tutu

Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.
– Desmond Tutu

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
– Desmond Tutu

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
– Desmond Tutu

The universe can take quite a while to deliver.
– Desmond Tutu

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.
– Desmond Tutu

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

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
– Desmond Tutu

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
– Desmond Tutu

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
– Desmond Tutu

Europe became rich because it exploited Africa; and the Africans know that.
– 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

As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.
– 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

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.
– Desmond Tutu

When a pile of cups is tottering on the edge of the table and you warn that they will crash to the ground, in South Africa you are blamed when that happens.
– Desmond Tutu

It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.
– Desmond Tutu

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

I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.
– Desmond Tutu

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

In God’s family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.
– Desmond Tutu

Hate has no place in the house of God.
– Desmond Tutu

We would like to see you departing peacefully.
– Desmond Tutu

Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa – particularly the ‘forgotten emergencies’ in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.
– Desmond Tutu

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

God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.
– Desmond Tutu

In many ways, when you’re a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.
– Desmond Tutu

And every human being is precious.
– Desmond Tutu

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
– Desmond Tutu

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
– 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

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
– Desmond Tutu

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

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.
– Desmond Tutu

It’s a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.
– Desmond Tutu

Many people would be surprised that, in fact, I’m quite shy.
– 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

For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.
– Desmond Tutu

If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
– Desmond Tutu

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
– 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

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
– Desmond Tutu

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.
– Desmond Tutu

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

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

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