Quote

The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life.

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
Actually
Making
Business
Abolition
Death
Penalty
Shows
Penalties
Mean
Reverence
Life
Civilized
Society

More quotes by Desmond Tutu

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I certainly know that I would not be able to survive if it were not for the fact that I am being upheld by the prayers of so many people.
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Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?
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Brothers and sisters of Egypt, you have given the world the most precious gift: the belief that ultimately right will prevail.
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There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time.
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Dream of a world where children can laugh and play and not be blown up by a mine they thought was a toy.
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I regard Abraham as my ancestor. Some of the greatest inspiration I have got has come from what we call the Old Testament prophets and what Jews would say our prophets.
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Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.
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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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Some people are able to use Bible as a means of opposing injustice, whereas others are able to find justification.
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We must stop climate change. And we can, if we use the tactics that worked in South Africa against the worst carbon emitters.
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Once you have women liberated, it's amazing how many other problems get resolved--pover ty, education, health. Women are the key in any community.
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The devastation wreaked by landmines is not only horrendous but immoral
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It was relatively easy, we now realize, to categorize countries and nations. You knew who your enemies were and whom you could count on as collaborators and friends. And even more importantly, you had ready-made scapegoats to take the blame when things were going wrong.
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Forgiveness is something that we are often asked to grant and very few of us ever have the roadmap of how to get from the pain that we have experienced to being able to forgive someone.
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You don't think we have a copyright to forgiveness, it is done by people everywhere.
Desmond Tutu
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The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it - oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.
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Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.
Desmond Tutu
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Every situation of justice is an occasion where someone is being humiliated and they want to restore their dignity.
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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.
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It is quite exhilarating to speak about a God who has an incredible bias, a notorious bias in favor of the downtrodden. You look at Exodus and the Israelites' escape from a bottomless pit. God is not evenhanded. God is biased up to his eyebrows.
Desmond Tutu