Desmond Tutu

We pray that Aung San Suu Kyi and her country are now on a path to freedom

I can't for the life of me imagine that God would say, 'I will punish you because you are black; you should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman; you should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual; you ought to have been heterosexual. I can't, I can't for the life of me believe that that is how God sees things.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom.

There’s no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love. That you and I and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things. That we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness.

The only separation the Bible knows is between believers on the one hand and unbelievers on the other. Any other kind of separation, division, disunity is of the devil. It is evil and from sin.

Let girls be girls and not brides

Nothing is too much trouble for Love.

When people decide they want to be free, there is nothing that can stop them.

Many people ask me what I have learned from all of the experiences in my life, and I say unhesitatingly: People are wonderful. It is true. People really are wonderful.

If you recall the happiest moments in your life, they are all from when you were doing something for somebody else.

To treat anyone as if they were less than human, less than a brother or a sister, no matter what they have done, is to contravene the very laws of our humanity.

Bringing people together is what i call 'ubuntu,' which means 'I am because we are.' Far too often people think of themselves as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

God says, 'You know what? I don't have anybody else... except you.'

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity - or because of their sexual orientation.

And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be - eagles, not chickens.

We have an extraordinary God. God is a mighty God, but this God needs you. When someone is hungry, bread doesn't come down from heaven. When God wants to feed the hungry, you and I must feed the hungry. And now God wants peace in the world.

Men and boys, we show our manhood through the way we treat our women. Our wives, our sisters, our mothers.

Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin.

Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"

If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is WOMEN!

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'