Archbishop Desmond Tutu
(1931-)

South African Catholic Archbiship, Social Change Activist
1984 Nobel Peace Prize Winner
1992 National Freedom Award
1999 Sydney Peace Prize Winner
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's Peace Leadership Award
2000 Gandhi Peace Prize | The Elders

birthdate: October 7       birthplace: Klerksdorp, South Africa

QUOTES

We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose.

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

Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is extended so obscenely on defense budgets would make a real difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and be given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

Action
You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

Children
"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."

Diversity
We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.

Family
You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

Forgiveness
"...in a very real sense, without forgiveness, there is no future."

"Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of what has happened when you are treated unfairly. Forgiveness is not pretending that things are other than the way they are."

"Forgiveness and reconciliation are not just ethereal, spiritual, other-worldly activities. They have to do with the real world. They are realpolitik, because in a very real sense, without forgiveness, there is no future."

Freedom
"We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say, '...we shouldn't have done that.' We must remember, my friends, that we have been given a wonderful cause. The cause of freedom! And you and I must be those who will walk with heads held high. We will say, 'We used methods that can stand the harsh scrutiny of history.'

Freedom is indivisible. Whites can't enjoy their separate freedoms. They spend too much time and resources defending those freedoms instead of enjoying them.

Hope
“Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.”

Human Rights
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. 

Hunger
...just a fraction of what is extended so obscenely on defense budgets would make a real difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and be given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

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

Landmines
“The devastation wreaked by landmines is not only horrendous but immoral"

Other Quotes
When the missionaries first 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.

 

"What we need today is an upsurge of international courage, moral indignation and human solidarity to demand action to end the crimes being committed against the innocent in war."

 

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