Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.

Let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete. Where there is poverty and sickness, including AIDS, where human beings are being oppressed, there is more work to be done. Our work is for freedom for all.

We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.

I have always endeavoured to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion.

Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualities which are within easy reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

It is also the fate of leadership to be misunderstood. It is a grave error for any leader to be oversensitive in the face of criticism, to conduct discussions as if he or she is a schoolmaster talking to less informed and inexperienced learners.