Ubuntu Meaning Quotes

We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (...) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.

[Don Beck] said, after hearing about the three stages of epiphany, "There's a word in the Bantu languages that [Archbishop Desmond] Tutu has used to help bring the entire country of South Africa together: ubuntu, meaning 'Today I share with you because tomorrow you share with me.'" The word can also be translated "I am because we are.

Professor Hansberry taught us about a concept they have in Africa—in Swahili it’s called utu. In Zulu, the word is ubuntu. It translates to ‘humanity,’ but what it really means is ‘community.’ I am because we are. Our humanity is tied together.

those of us with whom you have shared are all the richer because you've allowed us to walk in your inner garden," he wrote then. "And what a glorious garden it is!" Another time he wrote that he had discovered the South African word ubuntu, which means: I am because we are. "Isn't that lovely!" he said. "My identity is such that it includes you. I would be a very different person without you.

Ubuntu in the Nguni language means “humanity.” But that is an English word. In the local understanding, it means, “I am because you are.” You see, Father, humanity is a reflection on itself. We don’t act alone but rather with the consideration of others. Our acts are contagious. Wickedness sprouts like weeds, kindness like fresh grass. But weeds grow everywhere, and grass needs sun, water, and care.

Ubuntu is part of our culture Ubuntu was taught at home Ubuntu was taught in schools Ubuntu was taught in the community Ubuntu was taught in church. Today Ubuntu is nowhere to be found. Because we think being civil, educated, cool, and modern means forgetting who we are and what we are. Leaving behind our culture and heritage. Before we dress nice. Ubuntu is the root and heart of our heritage and that we need to celebrate every day. The world is getting messed up, dark and a bad place, because we lack Ubuntu. We all need the spirit of Ubuntu in us and that is our heritage.

Ubuntu is a South African word that means roughly “I am, because of you.” The concept of ubuntu captures both a personal meaning of connection, manifested by warmth and generosity, and a political meaning, represented by inclusion and equity. President Obama spoke to both meanings at the 2013 memorial for Nelson Mandela. “There is a word in South Africa—ubuntu—a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.

But for this, we need a new development model. We have designed an economic system that sees no value in any human or natural resource unless it is exploited. A river is unproductive until its catchment is appropriated by some industry or its waters are captured by a dam. An open field and its natural bounty are useless until they are fenced. A community of people have no value unless their life is commercialised, their needs are turned into consumer goods, and their aspirations are driven by competition. In this approach, development equals manipulation. By contrast, we need to understand development as something totally different: development is care. It is through a caring relationship with our natural wealth that we can create value, not through its destruction. It is thanks to a cooperative human-to-human interaction that we can achieve the ultimate objective of development, that is, wellbeing. In this new economy, people will be productive by performing activities that enhance the quality of life of their peers and the natural ecosystems in which they live. If not for moral reasons, they should do so for genuine self-interest: there is nothing more rewarding than creating wellbeing for oneself and society. This is the real utility, the real consumer surplus, not the shortsighted and self-defeating behaviour promoted by the growth ideology. The wellbeing economy is a vision for all countries. There are cultural traces of such a vision in the southern African notion of ‘ubuntu’, which literally means ‘I am because you are’, reminding us that there is no prosperity in isolation and that everything is connected. In Indonesia we find the notion of ‘gotong royong’, a conception of development founded on collaboration and consensus, or the vision of ‘sufficiency economy’ in Thailand, Bhutan and most of Buddhist Asia, which indicates the need for balance, like the Swedish term ‘lagom’, which means ‘just the right amount’. Native Alaskans refer to ‘Nuka’ as the interconnectedness of humans to their ecosystems, while in South America, there has been much debate about the concept of ‘buen vivir’, that is, living well in harmony with others and with nature.

Healing-centered engagement is akin to the South African term 'ubuntu," meaning that humanness is found through our interdependence. collective engagement, and service to others.

In that moment, I felt sad just thinking about leaving South Africa, and the people that I had met along the way during my cross-country adventures. In such a short space of time, they had filled my heart like they say in Afrikaans, propvol, meaning to full capacity, or to the point that there’s no space left – propvol meaning that not even a small cap full of something could fit because the space is chockful and completely stuffed. And that is exactly how my heart felt – propvol, stuffed with little South African remembrances and an endless string of little moments held together by the names of people, locations, or Afrikaans words or phrases combined with tasty meals enjoyed around dining room tables, outdoor living spaces, and confined places like the inside of the Land Rover while driving down the coastline of South Africa. Propvol, and yet that wasn’t enough….

If the meaning of the mountain range overlooking the home’s peace is called the Quteniqua Mountains, which is rally made up of the Langeberg Range (northeast of Worcester) and the Tsitsikamma Mountains (east-west along The Garden Route), and if the collective name of the mountain range references the idea of honey, the honey that can be found at Amanda and Lena’s home starts with kindness, a type of kindness the touches the world’s core understanding of compassion. “I want to give you a used copy of my favorite book that I think helps to explain what exactly I love about this area. Out of all of her books, this is probably one of the least favorite books based off readers’ choice, yet it is my favorite book because I think it truly understands the spirit of this area.” Amanda handed me the book. “Da-lene Mat-thee,” I said. “Is that correct…” Before I could finish, she had already answered my question. “Yes, the author that I had spoken about earlier today. Although she is an Afrikaans author, this book is in English. The Mulberry Forest. My favorite character is Silas Miggel, the headstrong Afrikaans man who didn’t want to have the Italian immigrants encroaching onto his part of the forest.” She paused for a second before resuming, “Yet, he’s the one who came to their rescue when the government turned a blind eye on the hardships of the Italian immigrants. He’s the one who showed kindness toward them even when he didn’t feel that way in his heart. That’s what kindness is all about, making time for our follow neighbors because it’s the right thing to do, full stop. Silas is the embodiment of what I love about the people of this area. It is also what I love about my childhood home growing up in the shantytown. The same thread of tenacity can be found in both places. So, when you read about Silas, think of me because he represents the heart of both Knysna and the Storms River Valley. This area contains a lot of clones just like him, the heartbeat of why this area still stands today.” That’s the kind of hope that lights up the sky. The Portuguese called the same mountain range Serra de Estrellla or Mountain of the Star… If we want to change the world, we should follow in the Quteniqua Mountain’s success, and be a reminder that human benevolence is a star that lights up the sky of any galaxy, the birthplace of caring. As we drove away, for a second, I thought I heard the quiet whispers from Dalene Matthee’s words when she wrote in Fiela’s Child: “If he had to wish, what would he wish for, he asked himself. What was there to wish for…a wish asked for the unattainable. The impossible.” And that’s what makes this area so special, a space grounded in the impossibility held together through single acts of human kindness, the heart of the Garden Route’s greatest accomplishment. A story for all times…simply called, Hospitality, the Garden Route way…

Before my head hit the pillow that night, I thought of these concluding words by Desmond Tutu: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Hope is that last act of faith when we feel the least like being faithful. Hope is the connection shared between the memory of was and the freedom of giving it space to be – even if that means consciously letting go when we truly just want to hold on…hopeful that things will stay the same. We’ll know that we have reached healing when we look back upon the experience, and we thank the experience through our sincere feelings of gratitude for helping us to become more courageous of heart. That’s usually when we realize that the only limitations of life are moments when we had a small mindset…or in the words of an old Zen saying: “We don’t find the answers. We lose the questions.” Let the questions flow past the banks where the fever tree grows, as we scoop up waters of hope, and hold onto that until it trickles through our fingers and back into the source of all change, the river of hope. The same place that houses our deeper thinking and commitment toward higher living just like the strength of the fever trees, an embodiment of hope. Bright green hope…the fever tree way.

As we drove out of one of The Kruger National Park’s main gates, before I could think further, I added, “That was a lekker holiday!” If South Africa had taught me one thing, it is that South Africans who are natural collectors of little moments understand that the feelings of contentment should have a scale to measure where exactly a person is on the range of gratitude. And lekker is exactly that, one word to measure the depth of one’s connection to the feelings of life within one. In that moment, my scale of contentment was sky high, and by the way I had just pronounced that word, I had just made it clear to the world that I was starting to understand the value of one word to convey a complete thought of happiness through its shifting context of interpretation – the gift of acknowledgement of an instant spark of awareness within. Lekker, simply stated -- a visceral connection to our understanding of the wealth of happiness residing in our heart by means of a single moment unfolding right now – in front of us. Lekker…enough said.

My short time in Pretoria made me realize that it can best be described as that place where the brushstrokes of life blend the old with the new in a way that helps to create a story of a place that will forever be deeply tucked into the breathing spaces of my heart, as a place of fondness. A reminder that even when the lessons doesn’t go according to plan, there are always chances to be like the statue of President Nelson Mandela, open arms – embracing the future and using the past, especially the most difficult chapters, to help to infuse new life through the wisdom gained by being like the middle part of the Union Buildings, a space of collaboration. In the words of South African British poet William Polmer, “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” And when the connection is made, that place is simply called Pretoria. And if one should look a little deeper at the connection, you’ll understand that Pretoria is simply a word with a Latin origin, Praetor, that means Leader, a perfect place to house the Union Buildings, the place where our difference becomes one, and that knowledge becomes the spectrum of where the old and the new intersect, and we call that… Pretoria…Leader within.

Veld, that space within most South African hearts that mirrors the open expanse of land where the greatness of life resides in the vastness of grasslands captured in the imaginations of wanderers and adventurer seekers alike when we stop our overthinking and optimize our ability to enjoy life’s unscripted moments that are wide-open and usually – right in front of us. Veld, a word for the miracle of newness and the appreciation for the life that is waiting to be lived, one grass blade at a time, and a lesson for humans in appreciating the fullness of life’s abundance when we slowdown the pace of our own world to absorb the miracles happening all around us – at any given moment. Veld, although this word literally means an open expanse, that is what life around us is truly about – an open expanse of miracles just waiting on us for our sense to mature… The magic of South Africa, a spell that will leave your heart as open as the veld and the expanse beyond that. A lesson in feeling small…

The operating system installed on the instance can make a difference on how it responds to network issues as well. For example, when an instance loses a DHCP address, Ubuntu typically continues to retry renewing the DHCP address. When the network issues are resolved, the renewal process succeeds and the IP address is restored. However, RedHat and CentOS are commonly configured by default to give up after the renewal process fails, which means that even if the network issues are resolved, the instance is no longer attempting to renew the DHCP lease and permanently stays off the network

continue polluting while trying to offset the damage through some face-saving corporate philanthropy exercises. We would be fools to assume that we can simply pay our way out of this mess. Nature cannot be bailed out, as if it were a financial market. We need to stop breaking things in the first place. But for this, we need a new development model. We have designed an economic system that sees no value in any human or natural resource unless it is exploited. A river is unproductive until its catchment is appropriated by some industry or its waters are captured by a dam. An open field and its natural bounty are useless until they are fenced. A community of people have no value unless their life is commercialised, their needs are turned into consumer goods, and their aspirations are driven by competition. In this approach, development equals manipulation. By contrast, we need to understand development as something totally different: development is care. It is through a caring relationship with our natural wealth that we can create value, not through its destruction. It is thanks to a cooperative human-to-human interaction that we can achieve the ultimate objective of development, that is, wellbeing. In this new economy, people will be productive by performing activities that enhance the quality of life of their peers and the natural ecosystems in which they live. If not for moral reasons, they should do so for genuine self-interest: there is nothing more rewarding than creating wellbeing for oneself and society. This is the real utility, the real consumer surplus, not the shortsighted and self-defeating behaviour promoted by the growth ideology. The wellbeing economy is a vision for all countries. There are cultural traces of such a vision in the southern African notion of ‘ubuntu’, which literally means ‘I am because you are’, reminding us that there is no prosperity in isolation and that everything is connected. In Indonesia we find the notion of ‘gotong royong’, a conception of development founded on collaboration and consensus, or the vision of ‘sufficiency economy’ in Thailand, Bhutan and most of Buddhist Asia, which indicates the need for balance, like the Swedish term ‘lagom’, which means ‘just the right amount’. Native Alaskans refer to ‘Nuka’ as the interconnectedness of humans to their ecosystems, while in South America, there has been much debate about the concept of ‘buen vivir’, that is, living well in harmony with others and with nature. The most industrialised nations, which we often describe in dubious terms like ‘wealthy’ or ‘developed’, are at a crossroads. The mess they have created is fast outpacing any other gain, even in terms of education and life expectancy. Their economic growth has come at a huge cost for the rest of the world and the planet as a whole. Not only should they commit to realising a wellbeing economy out of self-interest, but also as a moral obligation to the billions of people who had to suffer wars, environmental destruction and other calamities so that a few, mostly white human beings could go on

I believe the meaning of Ubuntu and its symbolism goes way before languages and or even Stoicism. It is the foundation of humanity having evolved and evolving for the better. It will carry on beyond today even.

Ubuntu means I am because we are. If I am to be better, we should be better. If I want you to be better, I should be better.

- Philosophy is perspective. Perspective is either healthy or unhealthy. A healthy perspective does not mean the situation is good necessarily. If you are in a bad situation, the healthy perspective is to act upon the probability that if you let yourself disintegrate, you will entropy in chaos.

Ubuntu is an isiZulu word meaning, ‘I am because you are, you are because we are’.

The lesson of ubuntu is best described in a proverb that is found in almost every African language, whose translation is, “A person is a person through other persons.” The fundamental meaning of the proverb is that everything we learn and experience in the world is through our relationships with other people. We are therefore called to examine our actions and thoughts, not just for what they will achieve for us, but for how they impact on others with whom we are in contact.

Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question, therefore, is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

Ubuntu is a powerful Zulu word that means we don’t exist on our own and that we are never alone because we are part of a bigger connected world of humanity. Before coming to South Africa, I lived in a society where being an individual was more valued than being part of a community. It’s not like that here. In traditional Africa, ‘us’ is more meaningful than ‘me’. Ubuntu means that I am who I am only because of who we all are together.

Umteto wesintu prescribes five amabanga okuphila (phases of becoming) as the stages by which to attain ubuntu. These are birth or the introduction of experience, growth or opening up and outward; and the adaptation to the demands of growth, maturity, or the highest point of achievement. Then there is the decline, the winding down of experience and death of the conclusion of experience for the person. Each phase is the moment of living out a principle; babyhood expresses the excellence which inheres in the person. During infancy the child grows; opening outward characterises his personality; he needs all the latitude he can have to learn and grow and develop his personality. At the height of his power he identifies himself with his neighbor to project society into the future or to guarantee its survival. Decline is important, too, because it enables the person to reassess his life and to give it meaning; he opens himself to all experience and to all persons; he responds to the call of mutuality. Death ferries him to the world of spirit-forms and death in the latter is rebirth into the physical world. The person, like all creation, is always moving between 'death' and 'birth' and vice versa. The cycle has no beginning and no end; it can neither be caused nor terminated because the person is a cell of the infinite consciousness. Ubuntu denies that the person owes his existence to any power outside of himself. The consciousness does not create him; he is its constituent organ. Since an infinity is by definition a unity, the consciousness cannot be other than whole; nothing can be taken away from it and nothing can be added to it; it cannot be whole if the person is taken out of it; it needs him as much in order to be a whole as he needs it to survive. It is this element of mutuality which binds the consciousness and the person and which keeps the cosmic order a unity and gives rise to the mutuality principle. . . . God is the cell of the consciousness infinitised, while the human being is God personalised.

There’s an old saying in South Africa that a single straw from a broom can be broken, but together they are strong. That concept is known as ubuntu, the philosophy that we are all part of an interconnected web, rooted in acts of kindness and generosity. It means the way we treat others is more important than our individual accomplishments. Essentially, you can’t be human all by yourself.