When you decide to follow a certain path, you should follow it to the end and not be diverted from it for personal reasons.

We want to empower our people; we want to strengthen them; we want to provide them with the kind of qualifications that will enable them to build up their own country themselves.

I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons, but for political and practical reasons.

I haven't heard any music on the BBC World Service in a long time. Maybe I'm listening at the wrong times. But not one single piece of music.

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

It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments.

There have been many claims that [U.S.] sanctions have hurt Burma economically, but I did not agree with that point of view. If you look at reports by the IMF, for example, they make quite clear that the economic impact on Burma has not been that great. But I think the political impact has been very great and that has helped us in our struggle for democracy.