“Ubuntu [...] speaks of the very essence of being human. [We] say [...] "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons."[...] A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.”

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu - “Ubuntu [...] speaks of the very essence...” 1

Similar quotes

“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”

Desmond Tutu
Read more

“A person is a person through other persons.None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.”

Desmond Tutu
Read more

“We are all pieces to a puzzle in each others lives. We have to decide were each person fits and not force them into a spot they don't belong in. Some pieces are beautiful, others are okay. Certain pieces you like more than others, then there are foundation pieces that outline your puzzle. You do have extra pieces that don't belong at all. But when your puzzle is done, you love each person that makes it whole.”

Vincent Edwards
Read more

“You know what he said? He said that being away from me is less like being away from a person than being away from other people is. I don't know anyone else who would say something like that. And he was right. When we were apart, I missed him all the time, but he didn't feel faraway. He felt closer than the kids at school."...Certain people are like that, I guess. They're together no matter where they are. They just belong to each other.”

Marisa de los Santos
Read more

“In homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. In heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling.”

William S. Burroughs
Read more