"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.“


-Desmond Tutu

posted in history


If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Other Quotes You Might Like

Discover more inspiring quotes from our collection

"All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries."

-Desmond Tutu

societyView Quote
"In many ways, when you're a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society."

-Desmond Tutu

societyView Quote
"But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next."

-Desmond Tutu

smileView Quote
"God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion."

-Desmond Tutu

religionView Quote
"The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated."

-Desmond Tutu

religionView Quote
"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."

-Desmond Tutu

religionView Quote

More Quotes About history

Explore other inspiring quotes in this category

"Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers."

-Carlos Fuentes

historyView Quote
"If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society."

-Strom Thurmond

historyView Quote
"For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats."

-Harry Browne

historyView Quote
"There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations."

-Claude Vorilhon

historyView Quote
"This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?"

-Azar Nafisi

historyView Quote
"What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history."

-Barney Frank

historyView Quote