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As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.

Desmond Tutu

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Desmond Tutu
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: October 7
Activist
Anglican Priest
Non-Fiction Writer
Archbisphop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Human
Humans
Perpetrate
Horrendous
Atrocities
Extraordinary
Capacity
Beings
Evil

More quotes by Desmond Tutu

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It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men.
Desmond Tutu
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There are very few institutions that give prizes to people who may not have got to be number one, but are possibly better at coaxing the best out of others.
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I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country [USA] that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.
Desmond Tutu
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Reconciliation is a long process. We don't have the kind of race clashes that we thought would happen. What we have is xenophobia, and it's very distressing. But maybe you ought to be lenient with us. We've been free for just 12 years.
Desmond Tutu
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The reprisal against the suicide bomber does not bring peace. There is a suicide bomber, a reprisal and then a counter-reprisal. And it just goes on and on.
Desmond Tutu
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Too many people think that reconciliation means you soft-pedal differences.
Desmond Tutu
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It is for real that injustice and oppression will not have the last word. There was a time when Hitler looked like he was going to vanquish all of Europe, and where is he now?
Desmond Tutu
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Consider what we sometimes do with our children: We imbue them with this sense, very early on, that they have got to succeed. We are not content that they just do well, they have got to wipe the floor with the opposition.
Desmond Tutu
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Those of us who came to be Christians get to remember that forgiveness cost God the death of God's son. It's an expensive thing in many ways.
Desmond Tutu
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Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.
Desmond Tutu
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There are things that must evoke our anger to show we care. It is what we do with that anger. If we direct that energy we can use it positively or destructively.
Desmond Tutu
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There is room for everyone there is room for every culture, race, language and point of view.
Desmond Tutu
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Of course, you've got to reckon with the burden of the past. You can't just easily dismiss it. It is a legacy and often you have to carry an albatross. And it won't happen until people are able to have a certain level of trust and try to speak to each other, not as caricatures but as people.
Desmond Tutu
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You ask when is it that you can say yes we have had enough. It is enough revenge and I think now we have restored the equilibrium. It never happens!
Desmond Tutu
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If we are going to bring about change, then men, for goodness sake, stand up and stand for the right. And I say, ‘power to the women.
Desmond Tutu
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I hope that you will be amongst those young people who say we worked to change the world. We worked to make the world a more gentle, a more compassionate, a more caring world.
Desmond Tutu
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The time has now come to slow down, to sip Rooibos tea with my beloved wife in the afternoons, to watch cricket, to travel to visit my children and grandchildren, rather than to conferences and conventions and university campuses.
Desmond Tutu
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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.
Desmond Tutu
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I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama. Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: 'You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian'? I don't think that is the case - because, you see, God is not a Christian.
Desmond Tutu
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There is no peace precisely because there has been no justice. As painful and inconvenient as justice may be, we have seen that the alternative allowing accountability to fall by the wayside is worse.
Desmond Tutu