People ask me about what sacrifices I've made. I always answer: I've made no sacrifices, I've made choices.
Aung San Suu KyiRead
I think when the people in Burma stop thinking about whether or not they're free, it'll mean that they're free.
Interpretation
True freedom comes from a shift in mindset rather than just external circumstances.
Aung San Suu Kyi suggests that the concept of freedom is deeply intertwined with one's thoughts and perceptions. When individuals begin to focus less on the constraints of their situation and more on the potential of their spirit, they will find that freedom exists not just in physical terms but also in their mindset and approach to life. This highlights the power of mental liberation as a precursor to actual freedom in society.
In practice
In a speech about civil rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of mindset in the pursuit of freedom.
People ask me about what sacrifices I've made. I always answer: I've made no sacrifices, I've made choices.
The 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.
Ironically, the very fact that democracy has such a lengthy history has actually contributed to confusion and disagreement, for 'democracy' has meant different things to different people at different times and places.
Power invariably elects to go into the hands of the strong. That strength may be physical or of the heart or, if we do not fight shy of the word, of the spirit. Strength of the heart connotes soul-force. Let it be remembered that physical force is transitory, even as the body is transitory. But the power of spirit is permanent even as the spirit is everlasting.
If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which their countries' freedom will remain a distant dream.
If the clockwork universe equated the human body with the mechanics of the clock, the digital universe now equates human consciousness with the processing of the computer. We joke that things don't compute, that we need a reboot, or that our memory has been wiped.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einsteinβs brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
A simple man with Scripture has more authority than the Pope or a council.
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