Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You don’t have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.
TUTU DESMONDYou don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
More Tutu Desmond Quotes
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There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream to find out why they’re falling in.
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Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.
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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.
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We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.
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Within every hopeless situation and every seemingly hopeless person lies the possibility of transformation
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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.
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A person is a person through other persons; you can’t be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.
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Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.
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I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.
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We do not heal in isolation. When we reach out and connect with one another—when we tell the story, name the hurt, grant forgiveness, and renew or release the relationship—our suffering begins to transform.
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You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.
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In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t.
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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.
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If you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You’re going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It’s like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people.
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When we see others as separate, they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face—together.
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