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
One person alone can't do anything as important as bringing genuine democracy to a country.
Interpretation
Democracy requires collective effort rather than the work of one individual alone.
Aung San Suu Kyi emphasizes the importance of collaboration and collective action in achieving significant political change, like establishing a genuine democracy. Her words reflect the idea that democratic principles cannot be realized by an individual alone; they require the involvement and commitment of society as a whole.
In practice
In a speech about civic engagement, mention how important it is for individuals to participate in democracy.
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.
The three branches of government number considerably more than three and are not, in any sense, 'branches' since that would imply that there is something they are all attached to besides self-aggrandizement and our pocketbooks. ... Government is not a machine with parts; it's an organism. When does an intestine quit being an intestine and start becoming an asshole?
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.
You can suddenly have a series of countries waking up and saying, 'I want the same status as the Brits,' which will be, de facto, the dismantling of the rest of Europe.
Let me let you in on a little secret. There is no such thing as an international community. There are self-maximizing, self-interested states that will push their interests as far as possible.
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