“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

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.

To the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict.

Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery.

The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large.

The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that ‘if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression’, human rights should be protected by the rule of law.