Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.
Interpretation
Maturity is demonstrated by our ability to accept differing opinions while maintaining love and care for one another.
This quote by Desmond Tutu highlights the importance of maturity in human relationships, particularly in how we handle disagreements. It suggests that true maturity is not about avoiding conflict but rather about agreeing to disagree respectfully, while still prioritizing love, care, and the well-being of others. This mindset fosters harmony and understanding, even in the face of differing views.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a community meeting to encourage respectful discussions.
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.
When a man says to me, 'Let us work together in the great cause you have undertaken, and let me be your companion and aid, for I admire you more than I have ever admired any other woman,' then I shall say, 'I am yours truly'; but he must ask me to be his equal, not his slave.
What I do on court is great, but what really matters is what happens off court, the people who you affect.
Clients don't expect perfection from the service providers they hire, but they do expect honesty and transparency. There is no better way to demonstrate this than by acknowledging when a mistake has been made and humbly apologizing for it.
In marriage you are not sacrificing yourself to the other person. You are sacrificing yourself to the relationship.
Since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were bound to be affected, some remotely, but some very directly and near-at-hand, by my own choices and decisions and desires, as my own life would also be formed and modified according to theirs.
People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.
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