Desmond Tutu

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

The universe can take quite a while to deliver.

I mean in the South African case, many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community, people who went to church on Sunday, every Sunday.

When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it's again not people who are intrinsically evil.

In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

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

Many people would be surprised that, in fact, I'm quite shy.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.

God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

Oh, 1994, April 27. There won't be a day like that ever again. I mean, the sky was blue, with a blueness that had never been there before.

How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?

Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa - particularly the 'forgotten emergencies' in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.

In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.

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.

And every human being is precious.

For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.

We would like to see you departing peacefully.

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute - a white skin.

For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.

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.

Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.

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

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.

God is patient with us to become the God's children he wants us to be but you really can see him weeping.

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.

Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining.

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.

Europe became rich because it exploited Africa; and the Africans know that.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.

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

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.

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't.

Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.

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

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.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.