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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Desmond Tutu
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: October 7
Activist
Anglican Priest
Non-Fiction Writer
Archbisphop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Actually
Heal
Less
Injustice
Festers
Pain
Overcoming
Gnawing
Others
Guilt
Squarely
Look
Finally
Numbness
Looks
Despair
Wound
Feel
Clean
Overcome
Feels
Involved
Wounds

More quotes by Desmond Tutu

Image
God is trying to woo us into a love affair with God.
Desmond Tutu
Image
I have often said to my Jewish friends: Please just remember where you come from. Remember Yahweh, who said to the Israelites, 'Treat the alien well with justice.' Almost all of the passion that we have has come from the inspiration that we have got from the Jewish Scriptures.
Desmond Tutu
Image
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.
Desmond Tutu
Image
This is a moral universe, which means that, despite all the evidence that seems to be to the contrary, there is no way that evil and injustice and oppression and lies can have the last word.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Most poor people I know are proud and really want not a handout but a hand up. They do have an inherent pride and dignity, and we should treat them as those who have fallen on bad days.
Desmond Tutu
Image
We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Our lives are a response to a love that we already have received.
Desmond Tutu
Image
To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.
Desmond Tutu
Image
The things [Pope Francis] has done in a short period of time: the fact that he does not live in a huge papal mansion and just dropped by in the dining room where ordinary people have meals. You think of his background, where he didn't use limousines in South America, that he used public transport.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Suffering is part and parcel of the human condition, but suffering can either embitter or ennoble us. It can ennoble us and become a spirituality of transformation when we find meaning in it.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Sadly, the things that we have set out as being worth striving for are not ultimately the things that satisfy human longings. And why not? Because we are practically the ultimate paradox: the finite made for the infinite.
Desmond Tutu
Image
I am human because I belong, I participate, I share.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Anywhere where the humanity of people is undermined, anywhere where people are left in the dust, there we will find our cause.
Desmond Tutu
Image
Arrogance really comes from insecurity, and in the end our feeling that we are bigger than others is really the flip side of our feeling that we are smaller than others.
Desmond Tutu
Image
No future without forgiveness.
Desmond Tutu
Image
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.
Desmond Tutu
Image
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
Image
We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.
Desmond Tutu