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
Some believe that the only way to remove the authoritarian regime and replace it with a democratic one is through violent means. I would like to set the precedent of political change through political settlement, not through violence.
Interpretation
Aung San Suu Kyi advocates for peaceful political change rather than violence.
In this quote, Aung San Suu Kyi emphasizes the importance of pursuing political transformation through dialogue and compromise instead of resorting to violence. She challenges the notion that only force can bring about a legitimate democratic regime, proposing that peaceful methods can be both effective and principled in securing lasting change.
In practice
In a speech advocating for democratic reforms, this quote may illustrate the importance of peaceful transitions.
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.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
To put off the inevitable, we try to fix the city in place, remember it as it was, doing to the city what we would never allow to be done to ourselves. . . . New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.
To say that I'm healed, uh, would be to imply that there's an endpoint. And I think healing is something that we all do, that we'll all continually do, for the rest of our lives.
Every day, we hear of civilians being killed and wounded in violation of the basic rules of international humanitarian law and with total impunity. Instability is spreading. Suffering is growing. No country can remain untouched.
They have eliminated rigidity, both physical and psychological, in order to support more fluid processes whereby temporary teams are created to deal with specific and ever-changing needs. They have simplified roles into minimal categories; they have knocked down walls and created workplaces where people, ideas, and information circulate freely.
We can look forward to the day when the free flow of trade, from the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego to the northern outposts of the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange, when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been: a meeting place, rather than a dividing line.
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