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

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.

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

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.

With the right kind of institutions, starting with the rule of law, Burma could progress very quickly.

Evil is… a moral entity and not a created one, an eternal and not a perishable entity: it existed before the world; it constituted the monstrous, the execrable being who was also to fashion such a hideous world. It will hence exist after the creatures which people this world

First one, then the other, getting the upper hand, and too seldom fusing till the result has the mellowness of full achievement.

It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute.

I’m a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can’t see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

One thing that’s true of gritty people is they love what they do, and they keep loving what they do. So they’re not just in love for a day or a week.