I still oppose "Visit Myanmar Year," and I would ask tourists to stay away. Burma is not going to run away. They should come back to Burma at a time when it is a democratic society where people are secure - where there is justice, where there is rule of law. They'll have a much better time. And they can travel around Burma with a clear conscience.

Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.

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.

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

Unless there is free and fair competition, there can't be healthy economic development. And what we have in Burma now is not an open-market economy that allows free and fair competition, but a form of colonialism makes a few people very, very wealthy. It's what you would crony capitalism.

There is no hope without endeavor.

We must make democracy the popular creed...If we should fail to do this, our people are bound to suffer... That is what my father said. It is the reason why I am participating in this struggle.