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.

Human rights must be protected by the rule of law, and there can never be occasions where human rights can be neglected or ignored or the rule of law set aside.

I have been arrested time and time again, and my colleagues, too. I cannot guarantee that I'll not be arrested again. But it's not something that weighs on my mind. I'll do what I can while I'm free. If they arrest me again, I'll do what I can while I'm under arrest.

The greatest gift for an individual or a nation... was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.

Freedom and democracy are dreams you never give up.

Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery.

Lasting solutions are always difficult to come to. But they will have to persevere. I've been repeating ad nauseam that we in Burma we are weak with regard to the culture of negotiated compromises, that we have to develop the ability to achieve such compromises.