Fearlessness may be a gift, but perhaps most precious is courage from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions.

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.

The [Burmese] government appears to be more interested in stamping out political activity than drug addiction. Very few university students on the campus could get away with engaging in political activities, but they seem to be able to get away with taking drugs. We have heard that it is very easy to obtain drugs on the university campuses.

Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men and women are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society.

We're nowhere near democracy. I've been released, that's all.

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.

There can be no civil peace without the rule of law.