QuotationsBishop Desmond Tutu
Quotations Archive From all-creatures.org

This Quotations Archive contains words from famous and some not so famous people who have expressed a sense of love, compassion, and respect for all of God's creation: for people, for animals, and for the environment. They speak of our teaching methods and philosophy. They speak of a lifestyle of non-violence. They seek to eliminate cruelty and suffering. They seek to wake us up. They seek to give us hope.

Weeds by Mary T. Hoffman

Bishop Desmond Tutu
Archbishop of Cape Town, Bishop of Anglican Church of Southern Africa
(1931 - )

"We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in."

"I've never doubted that apartheid, because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil, was going to bit the dust eventually."

"I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights."

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

"It is a kind of theological folly to suppose that God has made the entire world just for human beings, or to suppose that God is interested in only one of the millions of species that inhabit God’s good earth. Our dominion over animals is not supposed to be despotism. We are made in the image of God, yes, but God – in whose image we are made – is holy, loving, and just. We do not honour God by abusing other sentient creatures.”

"Even when faced with urgent human problems, we should not overlook the issue of justice to animals".

"I have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged."

"Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."

"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."


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