Desmond Tutu

“I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.”

“I mean in the South African case, many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community, people who went to church on Sunday, every Sunday.”

“All modern humans are related to what scientists call "Mitochondrial Eve." This refers to our common matrilineal ancestor. She lived approximately 200,000 years ago and depending on how you estimate the length of a generation, we are only 5,000 to 10,000 generations from one another. To put it another way, each of us is a cousin of one another at most 10,000 times removed. And yes, Mitochondrial Eve lived in Africa, so, in a very real way, we are all Africans.”

“A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.”

“You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.”

“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.”

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

“We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (...) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.”

“We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.”

“Discovering more joy does not, save us from th inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.”

“Though wrong gratifies in the moment, good yields its gifts over a lifetime.”

“Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.”

“In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.”

“In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.”

“It is a remarkable feat to be able to see past the inhumanity of the behavior and recognize the humanity of the person committing the atrocious acts. This is not weakness. This is heroic strength, the noblest strength of the human spirit.”

“But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.”

“When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it's again not people who are intrinsically evil.”

“If you are able to talk about your life and the joys and sorrows you have experienced, if you know your story, you are much more likely to be a skillful parent.”

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

“I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.”