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Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

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
Abandoning
Revenge
Forgiveness
Politics
Right

More quotes by Desmond Tutu

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Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.
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One of the ways of helping to destroy a people is to tell them they don't have a history that they have no roots.
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True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.
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The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
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To treat anyone as if they were less than human, less than a brother or a sister, no matter what they have done, is to contravene the very laws of our humanity.
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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.
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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?
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I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . .
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There is no situation that is not transformable. There is no person who is hopeless. There is no set of circumstances that cannot be turned about by ordinary human beings and their natural capacity for love of the deepest sort.
Desmond Tutu
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God could have created us to be automatons who were always choosing the right side, making the right decision. It is an incredible thing, God said I want persons who therefore have freedom.
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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.
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The moment our dignity is undermined, we get up in arms and want to see our dignity restored - especially if we are humiliated.
Desmond Tutu
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God places us in the world as his fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God's world.
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Human beings have a vested interest in being trustworthy.
Desmond Tutu
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I have voted for the ANC, but I would very sadly not be able to vote for them after the way things have gone.
Desmond Tutu
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All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others
Desmond Tutu
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We need other human beings in order to be human.
Desmond Tutu
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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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Despite all of the ghastliness in the world, human beings are made for goodness. The ones that are held in high regard are not militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They have a commitment to try and make the world a better place.
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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