Lee Kuan Yew Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• I am ... a realist. The magnitude of what one terms license or civil liberties or personal freedom has got to be adjusted to the circumstances.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Freedom, Liberty, Realist

  7 Copy quote

• I have said this on many a previous occasion: that had the mix in Singapore been different, had it been 75% Indians, 15% Malays and the rest Chinese, it would not have worked. Because they believe in the politics of contention, of opposition. But because the culture was such that the populace sought a practical way out of their difficulties, therefore it has worked.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Believe, Chinese, Different

  Debate on President's Address, Parliament of Singapore, March 01, 1985.

  4 Copy quote

• Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go ahead.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Lying, Book, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• I wish I can meet my wife in the hereafter, but I don't think I will. I just cease to exist just as she has ceased to exist.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Thinking, Wife

  "One Man's View of the World". Book by Lee Kuan Yew, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Jobs, Home, Writing

  "Lee Kuan Yew - the best quotes from Singapore's founding father", www.theguardian.com. March 22, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• I can only express the hope that faith in the judicial system will never be diminished, and I am sure it will not, so long as we allow a review of the judicial processes that takes place here in some other tribunal where obviously undue influence cannot be brought to bear. As long as governments are wise enough to leave alone the rights of appeal to some superior body outside Singapore, then there must be a higher degree of confidence in the integrity of our judicial process. This is most important.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Wise, Integrity, Rights

  7 Copy quote

• I feel sanguine enough to say that there has never been a better set of conditions for open democratic politics because there is no need for unified front politics.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Needs, Enough, Sanguine

  6 Copy quote

• We have over a hundred political detainees, men against whom we are unable to prove anything in a court of law. Nearly 50 of them are men who gave us a great deal of anxiety during the years of Confrontation because they were Malay extremists. Your life and this dinner would not be what it is if my colleagues and I had decided to play it according to the rules of the game.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Men, Games, Play

  6 Copy quote

• Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Army, Years, Two

  "Lee Kuan Yew defends PAP's Political Dominance". Reuters, September 16, 2006.

  9 Copy quote

• If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Ifs, Meaningless

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

  6 Copy quote

• I think in Singapore, we stand a chance of making the one-man-one-vote system work. With amendments as we have done, you know, like GRCs.. We need to make it work. And I believe with pragmatic adjustments, given these favourable conditions, we can have more open debate.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Believe, Men, Thinking

  12 Copy quote

• I don't think I made a conscious decision as a career choice. From my school days I had decided, persuaded by my parents, to prepare myself for the law. Then the Japanese occupation came and we went through three and a half years of what I would call the university of life, it was hard, it was harsh.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  School, Thinking, Careers

  8 Copy quote

• If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him, when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law – if that is not what we have always cried out against in Fascist states – then what is it?… If we are to survive as a free democracy, then we must be prepared, in principle, to concede to our enemies – even those who do not subscribe to our views – as much constitutional rights as you concede yourself.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Men, Law, Rights

  Legislative Assembly Debates, September 21, 1955.

  6 Copy quote

• Life is better than death. But death comes eventually to everyone. It is something which many in their prime may prefer not to think about. But at 89, I see no point in avoiding the question. What concerns me is: How do I go? Will the end comes swiftly, with a stroke in one of the coronary arteries? Or will it be a stroke in the mind that lays me out in bed for months, semi-comatose? Of the two, I prefer the quick one.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Thinking, Two, Mind

  6 Copy quote

• I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man, one-vote is the best. We practise it because that’s what the British bequeathed us

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Men, Vote, British

  4 Copy quote

• I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God... So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God - nor deny that there could be one.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Atheist, Believe, People

  "One Man's View of the World". Book by Lee Kuan Yew, 2013.

  8 Copy quote

• I make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Inspiring, Apology, Government

  "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy". Book by Professor Daron Acemoglu, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, 2006.

  5 Copy quote

• They say, oh, let’s have multiparty politics. Let’s have different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Party, Simple, Years

  8 Copy quote

• I knew that my niece was working nearby with some bank, so my wife rang up the mother and the mother called back to say that shes just called up to say she was alright.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Mother, Niece, Wife

  60 Copy quote

• Well if done a lot of hard work to try and get people to act rationally, the fact that weve had 15 deviant Muslims, plus 5 or 8 others that got away does not mean that all Muslims are deviant or extremists.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Work, Mean, People

  CNN Interview, www.cnn.com. May 14, 2002.

  26 Copy quote

• That was the year the British decided to get out and sell everything. So I immediately held an election. I knew the people will be dead scared. And I won my bet big-time. The gullible fools!

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Years, People, Fool

  The Straits Times, March 07, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• Even from my sickbed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel that something is going wrong, I will get up. Those who believe that after I have left the government as prime minister, I will go into a permanent retirement, really should have their heads examined.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Retirement, Believe, Government

  "Not fade away". www.economist.com. May 19, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who's very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine gun unit, that's a very tricky business. We've got to know his background... I'm saying these things because they are real, and if I don't think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn't think carefully about this, we could have a tragedy.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Religious, Real, Thinking

  Straits Times, September 19, 1999.

  4 Copy quote

• Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister... She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac... 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 other way you can govern a Chinese society.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Hurt, Writing, Thinking

  "Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas". Book by Fook Kwang Han, Sumiko Tan, and Warren Fernandez, 1998.

  4 Copy quote

• If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Years, Way, Repent

  "Aljunied voters will regret choosing WP: MM Lee" by Jeffrey Oon, sg.news.yahoo.com. April 30, 2011.

  5 Copy quote

Page 4 of 5

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin