Desmond Tutu Quotes

We need to create a new revolution, and to do that, don’t waste your life: stop pleasing people, and become who you always wanted to be.

In raising a people from slavery to freedom, you have called them to act on a new theatre; and it is a necessary part of your business, to teach them how to perform their parts.

The people have now come to realize that the only way to deal with the oppressor is to deal on our own terms and this was done.

When people made up their minds that they wanted to be free and took action, then there was a change.

The glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people, struggling to burst their chains and be free.

Neither God, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical, that promise success .... Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties.... Let your motto be resistance, resistance, resistance!

In all the Arab countries I have been in, the people have said that they were not demonstrating for food. They wanted dignity.

The status quo is presented as something to aspire to, whereas for us, the status quo was something we wanted to shatter in order to create the space for people to choose for themselves.

Depend upon it that the lovers of freedom will be free.

We are going to have to be very careful that we give people the hope that freedom is actually better than unfreedom.

I do not want to be civilized. I want to be liberated.

We want to know in order to make ourselves free. That is our life: one universal cry for freedom.

A people that loves freedom will in the end be free.

Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart...

If you want to be free be free

So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.

All over this world people are standing up for freedom.

Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.

You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.

Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom.

We're not trying to take power away or rule anybody - we're just trying to get up from under the rulers.

There is only one decision you need to make: You are either working at your Freedom or you are accepting your bondage.

It seems self-evident that we should want people to be free, to be able to play an active part in making decisions about matters of concern to them, to the largest possible extent.

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.