Quote

When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal.

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
Feel
Clean
Overcome
Feels
Involved
Wounds
Actually
Heal
Less
Injustice
Festers
Pain
Overcoming
Gnawing
Others
Guilt
Squarely
Look
Finally
Numbness
Looks
Despair
Wound

More quotes by 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.
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For both the offender and the victim, the pain is there, often unacknowledged and that is when it can cause harm through festering. When I ignore a physical wound, it does not go away. No, it festers and goes bad.
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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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There is no justice in killing in the name of justice.
Desmond Tutu
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Most of the leading figures of the Old Testament were polygamists. Abraham had several wives and concubines. If they wanted, they could say this was approved in the Bible.
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We have an extraordinary God. God is a mighty God, but this God needs you. When someone is hungry, bread doesn't come down from heaven. When God wants to feed the hungry, you and I must feed the hungry. And now God wants peace in the world.
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To be impartial... is indeed to have taken sides already... with the status quo.
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Many people ask me what I have learned from all of the experiences in my life, and I say unhesitatingly: People are wonderful. It is true. People really are wonderful.
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But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.
Desmond Tutu
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Restorative justice says No, the offense affected a relationship and what you are seeking for is to restore the relationship, to heal the relationship.
Desmond Tutu
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Human beings can be awful, but they can also be tremendous.
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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My flock is black, my flock is white. One has got to say to our people, I love you. I care for you, enormously. And when I care about black liberation, it is because I care about white liberation.
Desmond Tutu
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At home in South Africa I have sometimes said in big meetings where you have black and white together: 'Raise your hands!' Then I have said: 'Move your hands,' and I've said 'Look at your hands - different colors representing different people. You are the Rainbow People of God.'
Desmond Tutu
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Instead of separation and division, all distinctions make for a rich diversity to be celebrated for the sake of the unity that underlies them. We are different so that we can know our need of one another.
Desmond Tutu
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The world needs a revolution led by women.
Desmond Tutu
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Without forgiveness, there's no future.
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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We can arrive at better solutions to any problem or pain together, than we can by ourselves. The beauty of the modern age is that you are able to source answers, and sometimes the genius is in the combination of ideas and energy that does not reside in only one person.
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Nothing is too much trouble for Love.
Desmond Tutu