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.
TUTU DESMONDWe are not responsible for what breaks us, but we can be responsible for what puts us back together again. Naming the hurt is how we begin to repair our broken parts.
More Tutu Desmond Quotes
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When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
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We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know.
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The path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation.
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Forgiveness is simply about understanding that every one of us is both inherently good and inherently flawed.
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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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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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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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Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
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I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.
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I do believe there are monstrous and evil acts, but I do not believe those who commit such acts are monsters or evil.
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If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.
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To protect our children, we must talk to them about rape.
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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.
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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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