Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Desmond Tutu Quotes
EvilJusticePerseverance I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.
HumanityRecognitionUnderstandingEquality For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.
GodFaithDiversityAcceptance God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God's children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.
EducationEqualitySocietyDevelopment Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.
GodheadUnityDiversityTrinityDivinity For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.
InactionConsequences Of InactionMoral Responsibility If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
PeaceAcceptanceResilienceMortality I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.
ForgivenessInitiativeRenewalLetting Go Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you've closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.
ShameHistoryAtrocityAccountability In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.
Africa 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.
Social AcceptancePopularityHuman BehaviorPreferencesApproval I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.
Divine ImageDiversityHumanity Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?
ApartheidSegregationRacism I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.
PeaceDialogueEnemiesRelationshipConflict Resolution If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
ForgivenessNew BeginningsSecond Chances Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
RightsEqualityDignity I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
HypocrisyMorality I mean in the South African case, many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community, people who went to church on Sunday, every Sunday.
Non-ViolenceGlobal SolidaritySocial JusticePeaceOppression In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.
EmpowermentRepresentationInequalityPerseveranceEquality What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?
Racial DiscriminationVoting RightsInequalityInjustice 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.
EducationResponsibilityChildrenMorality It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.
GoodnessLoveCompassionTransformation 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.
InequalityPovertyWealth All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.
ChildrenInsightTruthInnocence Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.
KindnessHumanityRespectUnitySelf-Improvement Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
OppressionLegal SegregationHuman RightsResistanceMoral Unity 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.
LoveHopeHuman WorthValue of Life Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.
FutureDreamChildren When we see the face of a child, we think of the future. We think of their dreams about what they might become, and what they might accomplish.
ExploitationInjusticeOppressionMorality Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.
OnenessHumanitySpiritualityCelebration The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.
FamilyTogethernessGoodnessCompassion God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.
EducationMoralityEconomicsSelf-SufficiencyNational Development Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining.
ExploitationWealth InequalityPower DynamicsHistorical Context Europe became rich because it exploited Africa; and the Africans know that.
GraceFaithDivine Compassion In the Bible, we first encounter God when he sides with a bunch of slaves against a powerful Pharaoh, an act of grace freely given.
GodForesightKnowledgeDivine Wisdom But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.
ReconciliationForgivenessChangeLeadershipPeace Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.
ResponsibilityDutyHumanityLeadership In many ways, when you're a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.