To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.

Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.

There should be no political prisoners in a democratic country.

The judiciary in Burma is not independent. It's widely known, everybody knows that.

I've always said there's no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams but in order to that we do need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends are those who believe in us and who want to help us whatever it is that we are trying to achieve.

Calamities that are not the result of purely natural phenomena usually have their origins, distant and obscure though they may be, in common human failings.

I've always tried to explain democracy is not perfect. But it gives you a chance to shape your own destiny.