Desmond Tutu Love Quotes and Sayings

Desmond Tutu Love Quotes and Sayings

#1-2 God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, Crown Publishing Group, 16 March 2003

1. Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.

2. We tend to think love is a feeling, but it is not. Love is an action; love is something we do for others.

#3-4 Made For Goodness: And why this makes all the difference, Random House, 25 May 2010

3. Perfect love is not an emotion; it is not how we feel. It is what we do.

4. We love perfectly when the good we do cares nothing for how we feel.

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Excerpt from Wikipedia: Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 1931 – 26 December 2021) is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).
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Sayings by Desmond Tutu

#1 The New York Times Magazine, The Priest, 4 March 2010 [S]

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

#2 No Future Without Forgiveness, Crown Publishing Group, 4 February 2009

2. In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such atrocities happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.

#3 Robert McAfee Brown: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, 1984, p. 19

3. 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.

#4-6 God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, Crown Publishing Group, 16 March 2003

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

5. 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 on recognizing the humanity in others.

6. Not to forgive leads to bitterness and hatred, which, just like self-hatred and self-contempt, gnaw away at the vitals of one’s being. Whether hatred is projected out or projected in, it is always corrosive of the human spirit.

#7-8 Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, 7 September 1986

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

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

#9 The New York Times, 3 January 1985

9. 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.

#10 Truth and Reconciliation, 1 SEPTEMBER 2004 [S]

10. Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.

#11 New York Times, 19 October 1984

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

#12 Today, NBC TV, 9 January 1985

12. 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.

#13 Dalene Fuller Rogers and Harold G Koenig: Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul, 2002

13. Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.

#14 The Christian Science Monitor, 20 December 1984

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

#15-16 Truth and reconciliation, BBC Focus on Africa, January-March 2000

15. Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

16. Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion.

#17 The NPR Interview 1994 with Katie Davis [S]

17. 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.

#18 Made For Goodness: And why this makes all the difference, Random House, 25 May 2010

18. Life is more than breath and a heartbeat; meaning and purpose are the life of life.

#19 The Words of Desmond Tutu, 1984

19. 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.

#20 No Future Without Forgiveness, Crown Publishing Group, 4 February 2009

20. Suffering from a life-threatening disease also helped me have a different attitude and perspective. It has given a new intensity to life, for I realize that there is much that I used to take very much for granted-the love and devotion of my wife Leah, the laughter and playfulness of my grandchildren, the glory of a splendid sunset, the dedication of colleagues, the beauty of a bedewed rose. I responded to the disease not morbidly but with greater appreciation of that which I might not see and experience again. It helped me acknowledge my own mortality, with deep thanksgiving for the extraordinary things that have happened in my life, not least in recent times.
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Unsourced Quotes by Desmond Tutu

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

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

3. Forgiving is not forgetting. It’s actually remembering—remembering and not using your right to hit back. It’s a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you don’t want to repeat what happened.

4. 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.

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

6. We learn from history that we don’t learn from history!

7. If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

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