Quotes from Aung San Suu Kyi

With the right kind of institutions, starting with the rule of law, Burma could progress very quickly.

My attitude is, do as much as I can while I'm free. And if I'm arrested I'll still do as much as I can.

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

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.

We must all work together if we are all to live together in unity and harmony.

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've always been strongly on the side of non-violence.

In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic.

By helping others, you will learn how to help yourselves.

Burmese authors and artists can play the role that artists everywhere play. They help to mold the outlook of a society - not the whole outlook, and they are not the only ones to mold the outlook of society, but they have an important role to play there.

Art history is always changing too.

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.

I feel that the BBC World Service is not as versatile as it used to be - or perhaps I'm not listening at the right times.

Humor is one of the best ingredients of survival.

I don't think I have achieved anything that I can really be proud of.

I knew some of the army quite well.

The best way to help Burma is to empower the people of Burma, to help us have enough self-confidence to obtain what we want for ourselves.

The value systems of those with access to power and of those far removed from such access cannot be the same. The viewpoint of the privileged is unlike that of the underprivileged.

Fundamental violations of human rights always lead to people feeling less and less human.

The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence.

I've always tried to explain democracy is not perfect. But it gives you a chance to shape your own destiny.

I'm not the only one working for democracy in Burma - there are so many people who have worked for it because they believe that this is the only way we can maintain the dignity of our people.

Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.

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