Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.
I have been accused of many things in my life, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind.
Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?
I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man, one-vote is the best. We practise it because that’s what the British bequeathed us
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.
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.
The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge.
If there was one formula for our success,it was that we were constantly studying how to make things work,or how to make them work better.
Nine holes of golf will take you one-and-a-half, two hours. I run in 20 minutes, I feel better off. So the cost benefit made me drop golf.
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.
Freedom of the news media must be subordinated to the overriding needs of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.
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.
Usually I read biographies of interesting people. I am not attracted to novels - make-believe, or recreations of what people think life should be.
What are our priorities? First, the welfare, the survival of the people. Then, democratic norms and processes which from time to time we have to suspend.
It's irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. I've lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you're dead.
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.
The acid test of any legal system is not the greatness or the grandeur of its ideal concepts, but whether, in fact, it is able to produce order and justice.
I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality. And I mean generally, every year, when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that's life.
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.
Life is not just eating, drinking, television and cinema...The human mind must be creative, must be self-generating ; it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself.
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.
All my life... I believed in Malaysian merger and unity of the two territories. You know that we, as a people, are connected by geography, economics, by ties of kinship.
The values that East Asian culture upholds, such as the primacy of group interests over individual interests, support the total group effort necessary to develop rapidly.
I have always thought that humanity was animal-like. The Confucian theory was man could be improved, but I'm not sure he can be. He can be trained; he can be disciplined.
The big nest was in Afghanistan, thats not quite cleared, then there are nests in the Philippines, there are nests in Indonesia, the Malaysians are clearing up their nests.
I support the view that free trade in goods and services is a win-win situation. I'm not so convinced that free flows of capital without restriction is a win-win situation.
The First World became a popular phrase in about the 1970s and '80s. The World Bank then began categorizing countries in different categories, advanced to the least developed.
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.
I’m very determined. If I decide that something is worth doing, then I’ll put my heart and soul to it. The whole ground can be against me, but if I know it is right, I’ll do it.
The ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether it helps that society to establish conditions which improve the standard of living for the majority of its people.
Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.
How does MINDEF intend to reduce uncertainties, enhance understanding, and improve coordination in the region and beyond through defence diplomacy apart from conferences and meetings?
Sometimes, some foreign reporters who come to Singapore to interview me, and they wonder, why we conduct Meet-the-People’s sessions at the void deck. So much for a first world nation.
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!
The difficult part was getting the people to change their habits so that they behaved more like first world citizens, not like third world citizens spitting and littering all over the place.
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.
In the West, especially after World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family.
The task of the leaders must be to provide or create for them a strong framework within which they can learn, work hard, be productive and be rewarded accordingly. And this is not easy to achieve.
China is not going to become a liberal democracy; if it did, it would collapse. I do not believe you can impose on other countries standards which are alien and totally disconnected with their past.
I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been... But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to.
I'm reaching 87, trying to keep fit, presenting a vigorous figure, and it's an effort, and is it worth the effort? I laugh at myself trying to keep a bold front. It's become my habit. I just carry on.
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.
As an East Asian looking at America, I find attractive and unattractive features. I like, for example, the free, easy and open relations between people regardless of social status, ethnicity or religion.
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.
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.
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.
We are pragmatists. We don't stick to any ideology. Does it work? Let's try it, and if it does work, fine, let's continue it. If it doesn't work, toss it out, try another one. We are not enamored with any ideology.
I have no regrets. I have spent my life, so much of it, building up this country. There's nothing more that I need to do. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.
Singaporeans, if I can chose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer, the foreign talent are the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never hangs because you got enormous storage capacity.
China itself is now in the process of sloughing off not only the communist system, but also those outdated parts of Confucianism that prevent the rapid acquisition of knowledge needed to adjust to new ways of life and work.