Quotes from Desmond Tutu

Family isn't about whose blood you have. It's about who you care about.

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

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

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." [ Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa , 23 November 2004]

Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering--remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.

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

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.

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

We learn from history that we don't learn from history!

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.

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.

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.

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

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

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… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.

Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You don't have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.

We are made for loving. If we don't love, we will be like plants without water.

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

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

Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional.

There is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep.