Quotes from Desmond Tutu

I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

We would like to see you departing peacefully.

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

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.

I will never tell anyone to pick up a gun. But I will pray for the man who picks up a gun, pray that he will be less cruel than he might otherwise have been.

It's a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.

Trust is one of the fundamentals of human existence. We need to be able to trust one another. A man who can no longer trust anyone will become sick.

A person who is assured of the love of God will see his fellow men in a different light and treat them and himself differently, and of course this also applies to business leaders.

We spend billions on banks when we know that a fraction of this money could save all the children in the world.

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument."

Mother Teresa, you could say many things about her, but certainly you would not say she was macho. Anything but.

We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew.

The world's forests are a shared stolen treasure that we must put back for our children's future

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it

Peace without justice is an impossibility.

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.

There will be no future without forgiveness. Any process of peace is bound to collapse if this is missing. There is no way peace and stability can come through the gun of vengeance.

Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.

I am a Nobel Peace laureate and my business should be to try to bring stability, not to be a red rag to bulls.

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

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

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.

Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.