Desmond Tutu Quotes


As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.


Citations

Tutu, Desmond. No Future Without Forgiveness. Doubleday, 1999, p. 115.

Related Quotes

A Cossack revolt had broken out in 1707 and was put down by the Czar’s forces. He then issued what might be one of the first official orders for genocide. Few Cossacks survived.


While there were atrocities committed by both sides in the Civil War, the proportion tended to be heavily weighted by Confederate perpetrations. The Confederate officers were not appointed by the command structure and under strict military discipline, but they were elected by the troops and could be so removed (except for the general officers who were appointed by the confederacy). Also, the confederate troops were not as well fed or supplied as the North and they had fewer resources with which to fulfill their obligations to prisoners. In a number of battles, ill-clothed soldiers stripped the Union dead, wounded and prisoners, often naked to use their shoes, blankets and clothing, Union prisoners of war were much more badly abused in the prisoners of war camps like Andersonville which were not under the command of Robert E. Lee.


Although a very aggressive military commander, Grant did not approve of proposals to have wars of extermination which many called for against different Native American tribes.


Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
  • Born: October 7, 1931
  • Nationality: South African
  • Profession: King's College London

Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH GCStJ is a South African Anglican cleric and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was the Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then the Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology.