“The important thing is fear should not control your actions. It should not dictate what you do.”

Please use your freedom to promote ours.

More people, especially young people, are realising that if they want change, they’ve got to go about it themselves – they can’t depend on a particular person, ie me, to do all the work. They are less easy to fool than they used to be, they now know what’s going on all over the world.

It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear.

The courage that dares without recognition, without the protection of media attention, is a courage that humbles and inspires and reaffirms our faith in humanity.

I think that freedom is sometimes a state of mind. Sometimes, mind you, but not always.

I chose to walk on this journey, because I solely believed in it and wholeheartedly decided to do so, and I’m willing and able to pay for the consequences.

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.

Fear is a habit; I am not afraid.

My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world.

Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

There is a time to be quiet and a time to talk.

Challenges mean opportunities as well.

The people of my country want the two freedoms that spell security: freedom from want and freedom from fear.

So peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality, poverty.

If you can make people understand why freedom is so important through the arts, that would be a big help.

The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development.

Courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions, courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure’ – grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.

Fearlessness may be a gift, but perhaps most precious is courage from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions.

“Duty, Honor, Country” – those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

I’m at peace with myself. The main thing is not letting people dictate what I do or what I am.

I don’t discuss basketball. I dictate basketball. I’m not interested in philosophy classes.

History will dictate what my legacy is. And ‘maverick’ is fine, because I am.

The public one and the secret one, and you can dictate a sentence prepared by the political and security apparatuses that are behind this trial.

I am not going to be dictated to by fans, certainly. I am dictated enough to by my record company to last me a million years.