Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu, CHis a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionReligious Leader
Date of Birth7 October 1931
CityKlerksdorp, South Africa
moving home black-and-white
At home in South Africa I have sometimes said in big meetings where you have black and white together: 'Raise your hands!' Then I have said: 'Move your hands,' and I've said 'Look at your hands - different colors representing different people. You are the Rainbow People of God.
country path praying
We pray that Aung San Suu Kyi and her country are now on a path to freedom
want oppressors oppressed
God wants to set the oppressed free from being oppressed and the oppressors free from oppressing.
prayer people able
I certainly know that I would not be able to survive if it were not for the fact that I am being upheld by the prayers of so many people.
too-much trouble
Nothing is too much trouble for Love.
real europe injustice-and-oppression
It is for real that injustice and oppression will not have the last word. There was a time when Hitler looked like he was going to vanquish all of Europe, and where is he now?
running teenage block
To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralysing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.
crowds standing-out shoulders
You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.
fighting animal abuse
The matter of the abuse and cruelty we inflict on other animals has to fight for our attention in what sometimes seems an already overfull moral agenda. It is vital, however, that these instances of injustice not be overlooked.
leadership wisdom class
I'm absolutely, utterly, and completely certain that God wouldn't be homophobic. I'd much rather go to hell - I really would much rather go to hell - than go to a homophobic heaven.
country powerful people
People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful.
girl empowering succeed
If we succeed in empowering girls, we'll succeed in everything else.
children want patient
God is patient with us to become the God's children he wants us to be but you really can see him weeping.
hurt real eye
Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.