Quotes By Aung San Suu Kyi

I only used a cell phone for the first time after I was released. I had difficulty coping with it because it seemed so small and insubstantial.

One should mature over 20 years.

I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it.

I don't think of myself as unbreakable. Perhaps I'm just rather flexible and adaptable.

In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic.

Assuming the chairmanship of ASEAN isn't going to do anything about improving the lives of people.

I am prepared to talk with anyone. I have no personal grudge toward anybody.

I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism.

What I have experienced is nothing compared to what political prisoners in prisons suffer.

I don't understand why people say that I am full of courage. I feel terribly nervous.

I felt that it was my duty not to senselessly waste my time. And since I didn't want to waste my time, I tried to accomplish as much as possible.

If I was afraid of being killed, I would never speak out against the government.

For me, 'revolution' simply means radical change.

I think I should be active politically. Because I look upon myself as a politician. That's not a dirty work you know. Some people think that there are something wrong with politicians. Of course, something wrong with some politicians.

All repressive laws must be revoked, and laws introduced to protect the rights of the people.

If you look at the democratic process as a game of chess, there have to be many, many moves before you get to checkmate. And simply because you do not make any checkmate in three moves does not mean it's stalemate. There's a vast difference between no checkmate and stalemate. This is what the democratic process is like.

What does Burma have to give the United States? We can give you the opportunity to engage with people who are ready and willing to change a society.

I think I was the healthiest prisoner of conscience in the world.

You cannot compromise unless people talk to you.

If I were the blushing kind, I would blush to be called a hero.

I was a bit of a coward when I was small. I was terribly frightened of the dark.

I think by now I have made it fairly clear that I am not very happy with the word hope. I don't believe in people just hoping.

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

Books always help.

In terms of the history of a far reaching movement, 20 years is not that long.

It could achieve a lot if everyone in Burma could stop saying something is good if it is not good, or say something is just if it is not just.

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.

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

Dissidents can't be dissidents forever; we are dissidents because we don't want to be dissidents.

Of course I regret not having been able to spend time with my family.