Poet Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu

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Desmond Tutu Quotes

Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?
It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.
Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.
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.
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.
It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.
Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.
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.
You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.
The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.
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.
In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.
Without forgiveness, there's no future.
Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
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.
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.
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.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.
Without forgiveness, there's no future.
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.
You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.
We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.
But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.
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.
The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.
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.
Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?
Do your little bit of good where you are its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
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.
In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.
I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.
If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.
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.
The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it - oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.
In many ways, when you're a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.
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.
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.
The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.
God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.
But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.
In many ways, when you're a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.
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.

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John Bunyan Poem
Upon The Sun's Reflection Upon The Clouds In A Fair Morning
 by John Bunyan

Look yonder, ah! methinks mine eyes do see
Clouds edged with silver, as fine garments be;
They look as if they saw that golden face
That makes black clouds most beautiful with grace.
Unto the saints' sweet incense, or their prayer,
These smoky curdled clouds I do compare.
For as these clouds seem edged, or laced with gold,
Their prayers return with blessings manifold.
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