Desmond Tutu was an Anglican archbishop, Anti-Apartheid crusader and a human rights activist.
He rose to the peak of his priesthood as the first black South African to do so and stood firm in pursuing the good of his people.
This selection of Desmond Tutu quotes span from his famous quotes on injustice, family and Religion.
Top 20 Desmond Tutu quotes that will inspire your day
1. We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.
2. You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
3. Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
4. Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
5. A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.
6. 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.
7. Without forgiveness, there’s no future.
8. You must show the world that you abhor fighting.
9. My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.
10. 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.
11. If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
12. 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
13. Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another
14. We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God’s family
15. 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.
16. My father always used to say, “Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.”
17. 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.
18. Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
19. You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can’t be neutral.
20. 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