“I always say that one has no right to hope without endeavor.”

The history of the world shows that peoples and societies do not have to pass through a fixed series of stages in the course of development.

In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely “tolerated”, they are valued.

When I was in London a Kachin youth criticized me for not condemning the Burmese military for their offensive in Kachin State. I answered “condemnation is not the solution.” We want to build reconciliation, not condemnation.

One should mature over 20 years.

The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest.

Kindness can change the lives of people.

It would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear.

My top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves.

There is nothing to compare with the courage of ordinary people whose names are unknown and whose sacrifices pass unnoticed.

The viewpoint of the privileged is unlike that of the underprivileged.

I think people prefer the good to win, rather than the bad.

All right, your knees may be knocking but that shouldn’t prevent you from going ahead and doing what you need to do.

Democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not “given”, it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice.

I think sometimes if you are alone, you are freer because your time is your own.

As I travel through my country, people often ask me how it feels to have been imprisoned in my home -first for six years, then for 19 months.

Humor is one of the best ingredients of survival.

Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.

This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the earth.

One does not become fully human painlessly.

The universe is then one, infinite, immobile. … It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.

I told my wife, ‘One woman, lots of toys!’

A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there’s only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.

I have one criticism about the Negro troops who fought under my command in the Korean War. They didn’t send me enough of them.

I vowed to give up sex, bacon, and air travel if I ever made it back to terra firma in one piece.