"Ubuntu represents the idea that no person is an island. Every endeavour is collaborative. Every decision is effected, at least partly, by the community in which it is made and the communities in which the person has previously lived. Every single action relies on the actions of others. And every action and decision is oriented toward enriching the community in which it occurs."
-- Adele Wechsler
"You know when ubuntu is there, and it is obvious when it is absent. It has to do with what it means to be truly human, to know that you are bound up with others in the bundle of life.
…It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about compassion. A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are. The quality of ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanise them."
-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu“God Has A Dream” © 2004 Published by Doubleday
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