Desmond Tutu citations

Page 2

“Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

[, 23 November 2004]”

“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.”

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

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

“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.
:This quote, often attributed to Jomo Kenyatta, was first written in a fiction play published by holocaust doubter Rolf Hochhuth, in his controversial The Deputy, a Christian tragedy (1964), Grove Press, p. 144. No reference to any historical or original source was given. Other citations are found in books written by critics of religion, such as Christos Tzanetakos's "The Life and Work of an Atheist Pioneer", iUniverse; and Jack Huberman's "Quotable Atheist: Ammunition for Nonbelievers, Political Junkies, Gadflies, and Those Generally Hell-Bound" (2008), 175. No references are given.
: In Desmond Tutu: A Biography (2004) by Steven Gish, p. 101; is clarified Tutu used it as a joke which was not of him.”

“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 upon recognizing the humanity in others.”

“In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t.”

“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.”

“Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.”

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

“Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional.”

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

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

“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.”

“A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.”

“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.”

“If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.”

“Do a little bit of good wherever you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world”

“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.”

“We who advocate peace are becoming an irrelevance when we speak peace. The government speaks rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention, and death.”

“He has a childlike, boyish, impish, mischievousness. And I have to try and make him behave properly, like a holy man!”

“Freedom and liberty lose out by default because good people are not vigilant.”

“We don't want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil.”

“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.”

“History, like beauty, depends largely on the beholder, so when you read that, for example, David Livingstone discovered the Victoria Falls, you might be forgiven for thinking that there was nobody around the Falls until Livingstone arrived on the scene.”

“Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.”

“When people say that the Bible and politics don't mix, I ask them which Bible they are reading.”

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

“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.”