If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
Interpretation
To achieve peace, one must engage with those who oppose you rather than just conversing with allies.
Desmond Tutu emphasizes that true peace comes from addressing conflicts and engaging in dialogue with adversaries, rather than merely discussing issues with friends who share your views. This approach encourages understanding and reconciliation, suggesting that confronting differences is essential for lasting peace.
In practice
In a speech about conflict resolution, one might say, 'As Desmond Tutu stated, if you want peace, you talk to your enemies.'
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.
Beneath the hush a whisper from long ago, promising peace of mind and a burden shared. No peace which is not peace for all, no rest until all has been fulfilled.
Negotiation and discussion are the greatest weapons we have for promoting peace and development.
We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be acheived unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called 'peacekeeping forces' into areas of conflict, but peace cannot be oppossed from the outside with guns. Only by creating peace within our own mind and helping others to do the same can we hope to achieve peace in this world.
The basis for peace is respecting all creatures.
I believe in peace. I believe in mercy.
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