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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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Desmond Tutu
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: October 7
Activist
Anglican Priest
Non-Fiction Writer
Archbisphop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Mercy
Perpetrators
Always
Shackles
Would
Depended
Owning
Bound
Bounds
Forgiving
Perpetrator
Victim
Culprit

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I think it is a good exercise to ask oneself, How would I have wanted to be treated?
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Peace without justice is an impossibility.
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Ultimately, suffering is always political with all kinds of justifications - there are those who justify Israel's occupation of land as being a fulfillment of what God had promised.
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I will never tell anyone to pick up a gun. But I will pray for the man who picks up a gun, pray that he will be less cruel than he might otherwise have been.
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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.'
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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.
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In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute - a white skin.
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I wish that we did have a magic wand which we could wave and hey presto! Magic! Unfortunately life is not like that.
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Every situation of justice is an occasion where someone is being humiliated and they want to restore their dignity. They think, I am a human being and I may not be able to defeat these people or destroy them, but I will hit out at them, because I am not a thing, I am human.
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I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.
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