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I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . .

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
Thinking
Obscenity
Passionately
Penalty
Penalties
Opposed
Anyone
Death
Think

More quotes by Desmond Tutu

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I believe history teaches us a categorical lesson: that once a people are determined to become free, then nothing in the world can stop them reaching their goal.
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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You don't have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.
Desmond Tutu
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Every praying person, every person who has an encounter with God, must have a passionate concern for his or her brother and sister, his or her neighbor. To treat any of these as if he were less than the child of God is to deny the validity of one's spiritual existence.
Desmond Tutu
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In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.
Desmond Tutu
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Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction we are already feeling the effects.
Desmond Tutu
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In terms of the New Testament the Jews must suffer, therefore we will put it into practice if we will in charge and there will be no sympathy for the Jews when the blacks take over.
Desmond Tutu
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We must return to the fundamentals the fundamentals being that you count. That is where you start from. That you count you matter for God. That is a fantastic realization, and one that very few of us actually get to accept.
Desmond Tutu
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Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa - particularly the 'forgotten emergencies' in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.
Desmond Tutu
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All of us experience fear, but when we confront and acknowledge it, we are able to turn it into courage. Being courageous does not mean never being scared it means acting as you know you must even though you are undeniably afraid.
Desmond Tutu
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Theology reminded me that, however diabolical the act, it did not turn the perpetrator into a demon. We had to distinguish between the deed and the perpetrator, between the sinner and the sin, to hate and condemn the sin while being filled with compassion for the sinner.
Desmond Tutu
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I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.
Desmond Tutu
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We can be human only together. A person is a person to other persons.
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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If forgiving depended on the culprit owning up, then the victim would always be at the mercy of the perpetrator. The victim would be bound in the shackles of victimhood.
Desmond Tutu
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Life is funny and we are really funny, especially when we get to be hoity toity we can be so ridiculous. Life is fun.
Desmond Tutu
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We can only be human together.
Desmond Tutu
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What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?
Desmond Tutu
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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.
Desmond Tutu
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The sad problem is that we see ourselves as being quite terribly small. Instead of spending my time being envious, I need to celebrate your and my different gifts, even if mine are perhaps less spectacular than yours.
Desmond Tutu