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.
Interpretation
Desmond Tutu advocates for the complete abolition of the death penalty, deeming it incompatible with human rights.
In this quote, Desmond Tutu expresses his strong opposition to the death penalty, arguing that it is an egregious violation of human rights. He highlights the hypocrisy of a nation that prides itself on its commitment to human rights while still sanctioning such an extreme form of punishment, calling it an obscenity and advocating for its complete end.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate on capital punishment to emphasize moral arguments against it.
The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.
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.
Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.
Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born myself...a human being.
We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives.
When I was younger, I could do something useful just by being free for half a day, but now I need five days to get the world I've left out of my head and ten days or a fortnight not talking to anyone to hold what I need to hold inside my head.
There is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along.
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