One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom. Desmond Tutu More Quotes by Desmond Tutu More Quotes From Desmond Tutu The way sometimes we preach we make out that God is waiting eagerly to catch us out. It's not that way at all. I mean, it is extraordinary because it almost is as if God in fact wills us also to sin, but that is not true. Desmond Tutu waiting mean way I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't. Desmond Tutu shut-up i-can wish God says "This is what I would love you to be, but I am not going to constrain you. I want it to be your choice." And it is a fantastic thing because even at the moment when I am making the choice to reject God, I would depend from moment to moment, you know that beautiful image of God creating by breathing God's breath into this lump of clay, making it a human being. Desmond Tutu creating love-you beautiful If you are going to be a leader, you must have a record where people saw you are standing up against injustice at a risk. Then that builds up your stock of credibility so that, when you speak on another occasion about a different thing, people will pay attention. Desmond Tutu risk leader people God could have created us to be automatons who were always choosing the right side, making the right decision. It is an incredible thing, God said "I want persons" who therefore have freedom. Desmond Tutu decision sides want We mustn't romanticize suffering. It can turn people bitter and hard, although it does seem to have been almost indispensable in making people into the kind of leaders that we admire. Desmond Tutu leader suffering people You might have thought that a world such as ours, so hard-nosed and cynical and brash, would have very little time for transcendence, spiritual values of goodness and compassion, gentleness, and caring, but we actually do experience them. Desmond Tutu compassion caring spiritual The acknowledgement that this person is English, white, or French, or German, this is Portuguese, this is Rwandan, this is Senegalese, this is a black South Africans is a glorious thing. To speak of those positively, to say that they have characteristics, each one of them, that the others almost always do not have, and that there is a complementarily about it. Desmond Tutu black speak white Consider what we sometimes do with our children: We imbue them with this sense, very early on, that they have got to succeed. We are not content that they just do well, they have got to wipe the floor with the opposition. Desmond Tutu succeed wipe children People took some part of us and used it to discriminate against us. In our case, it was our ethnicity; it's precisely the same thing for sexual orientation. Desmond Tutu ethnicity used people 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. Desmond Tutu knowing people years The final and full revelation of God is not a book, it is a person. Jesus Christ. Desmond Tutu finals book jesus There is no religion in fact that I know that encourages or propagates violence in that its adherents should carry out. Desmond Tutu violence should facts God says "I have given you this gift, and it is a real gift. I want you to love me freely, and I will do anything, anything up to giving up the most precious thing I could say I have, my son, to prove I love you. Please come back." Desmond Tutu giving-up real love-you I wish that we did have a magic wand which we could wave and hey presto! Magic! Unfortunately life is not like that. Desmond Tutu hey magic wish God is on the side of the oppressed. Desmond Tutu oppressed sides I regard Abraham as my ancestor. Some of the greatest inspiration I have got has come from what we call the Old Testament prophets and what Jews would say "our prophets." Desmond Tutu prophet old-testament inspiration Sadly, the things that we have set out as being worth striving for are not ultimately the things that satisfy human longings. And why not? Because we are practically the ultimate paradox: the finite made for the infinite. Desmond Tutu longing why-not infinite You have to say, whatever it is that I say or do or think or teach must be something that will be consistent with who Jesus Christ was. So that is your ultimate litmus test, not that you've got specific words to say, whatever they may be saying. It is what is being said. They're consistent with the revelation of God that we encounter in Jesus. Desmond Tutu tests jesus thinking It is for real that injustice and oppression will not have the last word. There was a time when Hitler looked like he was going to vanquish all of Europe, and where is he now? Desmond Tutu injustice-and-oppression real europe
