The collection / 62 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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

Desmond Tutu / quote

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02Undated

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

Desmond Tutu / quote

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03Undated

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

Desmond Tutu / quote

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04Undated

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.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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05Undated

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.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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06Undated

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.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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07Undated

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.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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08Undated

Though wrong gratifies in the moment, good yields its gifts over a lifetime.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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09Undated

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.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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10Undated

It may be a procession of faithful failures that enriches the soil of godly success. Faithful actions are not religious acts. They are not even necessary actions undertaken by people of faith. Faithful actions, whether they are marked by success or they end in failure, are actions that are compelled by goodness.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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11Undated

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

Desmond Tutu / quote

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12Undated

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

Desmond Tutu / quote

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13Undated

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

Desmond Tutu / quote

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14Undated

You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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15Undated

It is a remarkable feat to be able to see past the inhumanity of the behavior and recognize the humanity of the person committing the atrocious acts. This is not weakness. This is heroic strength, the noblest strength of the human spirit.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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16Undated

All modern humans are related to what scientists call "Mitochondrial Eve." This refers to our common matrilineal ancestor. She lived approximately 200,000 years ago and depending on how you estimate the length of a generation, we are only 5,000 to 10,000 generations from one another. To put it another way, each of us is a cousin of one another at most 10,000 times removed. And yes, Mitochondrial Eve lived in Africa, so, in a very real way, we are all Africans.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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17Undated

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.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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18Undated

I'm actually very humbled listening to His Holiness,' the Archbishop said, 'because I've frequently mentioned to people the fact of his serenity and his calm and joyfulness. We would probably have said 'in spite of' the adversity, but it seems like he's saying 'because of' the adversity that this has evolved for him.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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19Undated

Symptoms of chronic stress are feelings of fragmentation and of chasing after time - of not being able to be present. What we are looking for is a settled, joyful state of being, and we need to give this state space. The Archbishop once told me that people often think he needs time to pray and reflect because he is a religious leader. He said those who must live in the marketplace - business people, professionals and workers - need it even more.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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20Undated

We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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21Undated

Discovering more joy does not, save us from th inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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22Undated

The fact is, rape is utterly commonplace in all our cultures. It is part of the fabric of everyday life, yet we all act as if it’s something shocking and extraordinary whenever it hits the headlines. We remain silent, and so we condone it…Until rape, and the structures – sexism, inequality, tradition – that make it possible, are part of our dinner-table conversation with the next generation, it will continue. Is it polite and comfortable to talk about it? No. Must we anyway? Yes.”‘To protect our children, we must talk to them about rape

Desmond Tutu / quote

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23Undated

Forgiveness is the only way to heal ourselves and to be free from the past. Without forgiveness, we remain tethered to the person who harmed us. We are bound to the chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped. Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness, that person will be our jailor. When we forgive, we take back control of our own fate and our feelings. We become our own liberator.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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24Undated

When you set out to change the world, the job seems insurmountable, but each of us can do his or her small part to effect change. We change the world when we choose to create a world of forgiveness in our own hearts and minds.

Desmond Tutu / quote

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