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
order substitutes tyranny
I have struggled against tyranny. I didn't do that in order to substitute another.
air order shining
Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you've closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.
life artist order
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.
heart order people
Just as I need other human beings in order to learn from them, so I also need their trust. If we aren't aware of that, if we fail to take it to heart and instead betray other people's trust, things will go badly with us.
order needs humans
We need other human beings in order to be human.
thinking order people
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 to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.
order competition suffering
Poverty - the greatest cause of human suffering on the planet - is itself exacerbated by conflict, competition for resources, injustice, even the global downturn and climate change. Diseases like AIDS, TB and malaria cannot be tackled without adequate resources. So you see everything is connected. In order to address any major cause of human suffering, we have to work together across many fronts.
order differences needs
Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.
africa behind beings despair human outside partners potential
We in Africa wonder: Can the world outside see the human beings -- or the potential partners -- behind the unrelenting despair?
cup football tournament
The World Cup will be more than just a football tournament
family obligation people radical
Sometimes people think (that) to see that we are family is to be sentimental. But one has to say: This is one of the most radical things, actually. When we do what we think is charitable, it isn't anything more than our obligation as family members.
bad-day pride hands
Most poor people I know are proud and really want not a handout but a hand up. They do have an inherent pride and dignity, and we should treat them as those who have fallen on bad days.
believe home evil
I would hope that wherever I was I would be me. I have been influenced by some wonderful people who showed me that there is an integral relationship between faith and life at home. Evil is evil, repression is repression anywhere. And if it is not consistent with what one believes is God's will, then I would hope that one would be able to witness it, and there are wonderful people who do so in very great risks to themselves.
exercise thinking wanted
I think it is a good exercise to ask oneself, "How would I have wanted to be treated?"