I've always said that the most important thing is job creation. Jobs will earn people money and build self-confidence.

Fires of suffering and strife are raging around the world.

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.

To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.

Maybe it is something to do with age, but I have become fonder of poetry than of prose.

Human beings want to be free and however long they may agree to stay locked up, to stay oppressed, there will come a time when they say 'That's it.' Suddenly they find themselves doing something that they never would have thought they would be doing, simply because of the human instinct that makes them turn their face towards freedom.

At the moment I would like to emphasize the need for vocational training, for non-formal education in Burma to help all those young people who have suffered from a bad education. They have to be trained to earn their living. They have to have enough education vocational training to be able to set up respectable lives for themselves.