Desmond Tutu

Forgiveness is the grace by which you enable the other person to get up and get up with dignity, to begin anew.

I have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged.

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.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

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.

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.

It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

It's a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.

And every human being is precious.

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.

I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country [USA] that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.

There will be no future without forgiveness. Any process of peace is bound to collapse if this is missing. There is no way peace and stability can come through the gun of vengeance.

Brothers and sisters of Egypt, you have given the world the most precious gift: the belief that ultimately right will prevail.

A jealous person is doubly unhappy-over what he has, which is judged inferior, and over which he has not, which is judged superior. Such a person is doubly removed from knowing the true blessing of creation.

Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.

We would like to see you departing peacefully.

When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal.

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

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.