20 famous Desmond Tutu quotes

Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Desmond Tutu’s famous quotes

1.       There comes a time when we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.

2.       If you are asked to take up arms, reject that call. By putting down your arms you will demonstrate the character that God gave to each of you.

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

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

5.       If I go up to heaven and find a homophobic god, I will tell him I prefer the other place.

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

7.       Some of us might look like accidents, but I mean none of us is in fact an accident.

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

9.       There is something in us that refuses to be regarded as less than human. We are created for freedom.

10.   Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument

11.   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.

12.   There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time.

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

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

15.   When missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the lad. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

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

17.   Repairing injustices without creating justice always ends up making reality worse.

18.   I can’t control what happens to me, but I can control how I respond to it.

19.   We have a planet that is at risk, where resources don’t have permanent life. We are going to have to make the decision: are we going to survive or are we waiting for our extinction? One day we will wake up and find people are fighting not for oil but water.

20.   I pray that politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth with dignity and love.