Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.

There should be no political prisoners in a democratic country.

If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia.

Fear is a habit; I am not afraid.

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

If you look at the democratic process as a game of chess, there have to be many, many moves before you get to checkmate. And simply because you do not make any checkmate in three moves does not mean it's stalemate. There's a vast difference between no checkmate and stalemate. This is what the democratic process is like.

In Burma, we have only about four percent of the people in our country who are (college) graduates. So can we not value the majority? No, we must. If we just value the graduates, then does that mean our people are not valuable? I don't believe that. What is important is we need right people in right positions.