My vision is of a South Africa that is totally non-racial...a new South Africa, a free South Africa, where all of us, black and white together, will walk tall; where all of us, black and white together, will hold hands as we stride forth on the Freedom March to usher in the new South Africa where people will matter because they are human beings made in the image of God.

I want the government to know now and always that I do not fear them... There is nothing the government can do to me that will stop me from... what I believe is what God wants me to do... I cannot help it when I see injustice. I cannot keep quiet.

Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.

This award is for you, who down the ages have said we seek to change this evil system peacefully. The world recognizes that we are agents of peace, of reconciliation, of love, of justice, of caring, of compassion. I have the great honor of receiving this award on your behalf. It is our prize. It is not Desmond Tutu's prize. The world recognizes that and thank God that our God is God. Thank God that our God is in charge.
[Nobel Speech]

I am human because you are human. My humanity is caught up in yours and if you are dehumanized, I am dehumanized, and anger and resentment and retribution are corrosive of this great good, the harmony that has got to exist between people.

Many people think that Christians should be neutral, or that the Church must be neutral. But in a situation of injustice and oppression such as we have in South Africa, not to choose to oppose, is in fact to have chosen to side with the powerful, with the exploiter, with the oppressor.... The Church in South Africa must be the prophetic church, which cries out 'Thus saith the Lord', speaking up against injustice and violence, against oppression and exploitation, against all that dehumanizes God's children and makes them less than what God intended them to be... For my part, the day will never come when apartheid will be acceptable. It is an evil system and it is at variance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why I oppose it and can never compromise with it - not for political reasons but because I am a Christian.

In our African language we say 'a person is a person through other persons.' I would not know how to be a human being at all except I learned this from other human beings. We are made for a delicate network of relationships, of interdependence. We are meant to complement each other. All kinds of things go horribly wrong when we break that fundamental law of our being. Not even the most powerful nation can be completely self-sufficient.

I am opposed to both the violence of those who maintain an unjust system and the violence of those who seek to overthrow it.