I have grown used to the fact that public repentance is the most unacceptable option for the modern politician.

The essence of life will never be captured by even the greatest of formulas.

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others... When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers ... we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today.

One drop of truth can outweigh an ocean of lies

But nothing is all black in nature.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.