Lee Kuan Yew Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• There are some flaws in the assumptions made for democracy. It is assumed that all men and women are equal or should be equal. Hence, one-man-one-vote. But is equality realistic? If it is not, to insist on equality must lead to regression.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Men, Democracy, Regression

  Lee Kuan Yew (2013). “The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew”, p.48, Editions Didier Millet

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• We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Country, Religious, People

  "Lee Kuan Yew, founding father of modern Singapore, dies aged 91". Interview With Peter Lloyd, www.abc.net.au. March 23, 2015.

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• One-man-one-vote is a most difficult form of government.. Results can be erratic.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Men, Erratic

  Lee Kuan Yew (2013). “The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew”, p.46, Editions Didier Millet

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• Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Sick, Bed

  Said at National Day Rally in 1988. "The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume 2, The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". Book edited by Nicholas Tarling, 1992.

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• It is essential to rear a generation at the very top of society that has all the qualities needed to lead and give the people the inspiration and the drive to make it succeed. In short, the elite.. Every society tries to produce this type. The British have special schools for them: the gifted and talented are sent to Eton and Harrow.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiration, School, People

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• I was a product of the times, the war, the occupation, the reoccupation, my 4 years in Britain, admiring but at the same time questioning whether they are able to do a better job than we can.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Jobs, War

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• I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind - an inability to chart a course whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. If you can't force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Blow, Thinking, Government

  "Success Stories Lee Kuan Yew". DVD, documentary, 2002.

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• Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Games, Iron

  Said at a rally in 1980. "Singapore's Founding Father Lee Kuan Yew Dies at 91", www.bbc.com. March 23, 2015.

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• At the end of the day, what I cherish most are the human relationships. With the unfailing support of my wife and partner I have lived my life to the fullest. It is the friendships I made and the close family ties I nurtured that have provided me with that sense of satisfaction at a life well lived, and have made me what I am.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Ties, Wife, Support

  Lee Kuan Yew (2013). “The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew”, p.160, Editions Didier Millet

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• Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Christian, White, People

  "American Leaders Swooning Over Singapore’s Thuggish Founder Are Blind Politically, Not Just Morally" by Jim Sleeper, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 2, 2015.

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• I don't believe in love at first sight. I think it's a grave mistake.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Mistake, Believe

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• I’m not interested in changing either my suit or my car or whatever with every change in fashion. That’s irrelevant. I don’t judge myself or my friends by their fashions. Of course, I don’t approve of people who are sloppy and unnecessarily shabby or dishevelled… But I’m not impressed by a US$5,000 or US$10,000 Armani suit.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Fashion, Judging, Car

  Lee Kuan Yew (2013). “The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew”, p.148, Editions Didier Millet

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• You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... my asset values will disappear, my apartments will be worth a fraction of what they were, my ministers' jobs will be in peril, their security will be at risk and their women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Country, Jobs, Together Again

  Straits Times, April 5, 2007.

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• It’s irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. What they think of me after I’m dead and gone in one generation will be determined by researchers who do PhDs on me, right? So there will be a lot of revisionism. As people revised Stalin, Brezhnev and one day now Yeltsin, and later on Putin. I’ve lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you’re dead.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Thinking, Long, People

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• I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Citizens, Done

  The Straits Times, April 20, 1987.

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• To straddle the middle ground and win elections, we have to be in charge of the political agenda. This can only be done by not being beaten in the argument with our critics. They complain that I come down too hard on their arguments. But wrong ideas have to be challenged before they influence public opinion and make for problems. Those who try to be clever at the expense of the government should not complain if my replies are as sharp as their criticisms.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Clever, Winning, Government

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• If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you're putting yourself out of business.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Business, Outsourcing

  "Rage against off-shoring is very real" by David Kirkpatrick, www.cnn.com. February 23, 2004.

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• There is nothing to prevent you from pushing your propaganda, to push your programme out to the students or with the public at large…and if you can carry the ground, if you are right, you win. That’s democracy.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Winning, Democracy, Pushing

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• Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Hurt, Thinking, Chinese

  "Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas". Book by Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez, Sumiko Tan, 1997.

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• If you don’t include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society…So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That’s a problem.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Stupid, People, Support

  National Day Rally, 1983.

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• We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two… We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anaemic.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Regret, Children, Numbers

  Presenting the Abortion Bill, sprs.parl.gov.sg. December 23, 1969.

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• But we either believe in democracy or we don't. If we do, then, we must say categorically, without qualification, that no restraint from the any democratic processes, other than by the ordinary law of the land, should be allowed. If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then, they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication. Then, no law should permit those democratic processes to be set at nought.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Believe, Men, Law

  Legislative Assembly Debates, April 27, 1955.

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• If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have fostered one.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Nannies, Proud

  "From Third World to First, The Singapore Story: 1965-2000". Book by Lee Kuan Yew, 2000.

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• Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalization.. I hold unconventional views about this.. I do not believe if you are a libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Believe, Hands, Ideas

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• What is of consequence is I did my best.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Consequence

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