Desmond Tutu
South African Anglican archbishop, theologian, anti-apartheid activist, Nobel Peace laureate (1984), and chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission — the man who coined the phrase 'rainbow nation' and who, with the Dalai Lama, anchored two decades of public conversation between Christian and Buddhist teachers of joy. Born 1931 in Klerksdorp, Tutu became the first Black Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986; from that pulpit he opposed apartheid in moral, theological, and (when church discipline allowed) political terms, then later spoke against the policies of the post-apartheid African National Congress with the same unflinching voice. His teaching is built on ubuntu — 'I am because we are' — and on the conviction that forgiveness, while costly, is the only sustainable path to a shared human future. He died in Cape Town in 2021.
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Quotes by Desmond Tutu
111 quotes“To be human is to grow and to be vulnerable.”
“Pain and pleasure are inseparable. Without one, you can't really know the other.”
“As I told the Dalai Lama: 'How am I going to be a holy man if I don't even know what suffering feels like?'”
“Compassion is not just a feeling. It is a response to pain that is deeply human.”
“Compassion gives strength and creates kindness in the face of cruelty.”
“Compassion does not just take things lying down; it takes the abuse and yet works to right the wrong.”
“You don't have to be inducing the laughter; you don't have to perform.”
“You have to develop the discipline of joy.”
“In our country we have a phrase: ubuntu. We say a person is a person through other persons.”
“Without other persons there is no us. There is no me, only we.”
“You don't have to wait until you have a job to do something that improves the world.”
“Goodness is the very fingerprint of the divine on us.”
“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 for laughter, for joy, for caring.”
“Although the wind blows where it wills, we should still pray.”
“God allows us to be co-creators with Him.”
“Without us, God will not. Without God, we cannot.”
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