People ask me about what sacrifices I've made. I always answer: I've made no sacrifices, I've made choices.
As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of standing up for human rights and the injustice of individual suffering.
Aung San Suu Kyi's quote speaks to the heart of human rights advocacy, reminding us that the suffering of even a single individual, particularly those imprisoned for their beliefs, is unacceptable. It serves as a call to recognize and act against injustice, highlighting the collective responsibility to defend those who cannot defend themselves. In essence, the message is that the fight for freedom and dignity must include every individual, as the incarceration of one reflects a failure for all of humanity.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a speech about human rights awareness.
More from Aung San Suu Kyi
All quotes βThe struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.
This was the way I was brought up to think of politics, that politics was to do with ethics, it was to do with responsibility, it was to do with service, so I think I was conditioned to think like that, and I'm too old to change now.
My top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves.
If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise.
Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace.
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I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.
There's something wrong in a nation where six million black men are not allowed to vote because they were convicted of felonies. They've paid their dues to society, but yet their right to vote is not reinstated.
I am not going to second-guess my old battlefield comrades from Iraq and Afghanistan; each has his own reason for what he has done.