Lee Kuan Quotes & Sayings

The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. — Lee Kuan Yew

Countries that are agricultural can, at a low standard of living, sustain themselves. You can be self-sufficient; the money economy is a relatively insignificant part of the total economy. Singapore never was an agricultural country. — Lee Kuan Yew

Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don't understand this — Lee Kuan Yew

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient. — Joe Biden

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

China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the United States can draw on a talent pool of 7 billion and recombine them in a diverse culture that enhances creativity in a way that ethnic Han nationalism cannot. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

China is a vast, disparate country; there is no alternative to strong central power. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and China are more likely to view each other as competitors if not adversaries. But the die has not been cast. The best possible outcome is a new understanding that when they cannot cooperate, they will coexist and allow all countries in the Pacific to grow and thrive. — Lee Kuan Yew

They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly believe that the chap who can't pass primary six knows the consequence of his choice when he answers a question viscerally, on language, culture and religion? But we knew the consequences. We would starve, we would have race riots. We would disintegrate. — Lee Kuan Yew

I think we have a good foundation which Mr. Lee Kuan Yew laid down, but you have to move forward. Now the question is what can Mr. Lee Hsien Loong and his team, and all our younger ministers can do now to build on the foundation which Mr. Lee Kuan Yew has built. — Tony Tan

Usually I read biographies of interesting people. I am not attracted to novels - make-believe, or recreations of what people think life should be, — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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, I and my family could have a tragedy. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

I've got one grandson gone to MIT. Another grandson had been in the American school here. Because he was dyslexic, and we then didn't have the teachers to teach him how to overcome or cope with his dyslexia, so he was given exemption to go to the American school. He speaks like an American. He's going to Wharton. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

My children were educated in what were then Chinese schools, and they learned English as a subject. But they made up when they went to English-language universities. So they didn't lose out. They had a basic set of traditional Confucian values. Not my grandchildren. — Lee Kuan Yew

Having an education is one thing, being educated is another. — Lee Kuan Yew

Every person, genius or moron, has a right to reproduce himself. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

I always tried to be correct, not politically correct. — Lee Kuan Yew

You marry a non-graduate, then you are going to worry if your son or daughter is going to make it to the university. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

Put it this way. As long as Jeyaretnam [Workers' Party leader] stands for what he stands for -- a thoroughly destructive force for me -- we will knock him. There are two ways of playing this. One, a you attack the policies; two, you attack the system. Jeyaretnam was attacking the system, he brought the Chief Justice into it. If I want to fix you, do I need the Chief Justice to fix you? Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac. That's the way I had to survive in the past. That's the way the communists tackled me. He brought the Chief Justice into the political arena. He brought my only friend in university into our quarrel. How dare he! — Lee Kuan Yew

President Nixon was a pragmatic strategist. He would engage, not contain, China, but he would also quietly set pieces into place for a fallback position should China not play according to the rules as a good global citizen. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

You need a certain standard of literacy, moral and ethical values, to be able to run a one man, one vote system. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

Singapore is now in the top five. Its income per person even tops oil-rich and scarcely populated Kuwait. Having realized that the country had no natural resources, the government of founding father Lee Kuan Yew directed massive investment in human capital. Kids who were eight or ten or thirteen several decades ago are now some of the most productive citizens of today's economy.

A tiny nation-state with no natural resources and a large number of people living in a relatively small physical space has managed to outearn a country with some of the largest oil deposits ever found. That is the power of investing in and nurturing young brains.

Education alone may not be enough to guarantee economic success. There are other success factors that matter, like good governance, rule of law, and access to trading routes and partners. But if you were challenged to assemble a prosperous society from scratch, education would be the first building block you'd want to develop. — John Wood

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

I pointed to an article with bold headlines reporting that the police had refused to allow the PAP to hold a rally at Empress Place, and then to the last paragraph where in small type it added the meeting would take place where we were now. I compared this with a prominent report about an SPA rally. This was flagrant bias. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions which are inimical to development. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless. — Lee Kuan Yew

I do not yet know of a man who became a leader as a result of having undergone a leadership course. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

India is scared of the competition ... because Chinese goods will go into India and compete. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

If you want to reach your goals and dreams, you cannot do it without discipline — Lee Kuan Yew

With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries ... What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

When you're Singapore's leader and your existence depends on performance - extraordinary performance, better than your competitors - when that performance disappears because the system on which it's been based becomes eroded, then you've lost everything... I try to tell the younger generation that and they say the old man is playing the same record, we've heard it all before. I happen to know how we got here and I know how we can unscramble it." - On one freak election result ruining Singapore — Lee Kuan Yew

I believe that life is a process of continuous change and a constant struggle to make that change one for the better. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

I would not score very highly on religious value. — Lee Kuan Yew

Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development. — Lee Kuan Yew

A leader without the vision, to strive to improve things, is no good. Then you will just stay put, you won't progress. — Lee Kuan Yew

The Japanese high command recognised the sexual needs of the men and provided for them. As a consequence, rape was not frequent. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

The problem is to keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts. — Lee Kuan Yew

Harry was a bright boy. And like many bright boys, he had a little mischief in him. — Patrick Yee

In the East, the main object is to have a well-ordered society so that everybody can have maximum enjoyment of his freedoms. This freedom can only exist in an ordered state and not in a natural state of contention and anarchy. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

I am not given to making sense out of life - or coming up with some grand narrative on it - other than to measure it by what you think you want to do in life. As for me, I have done what I had wanted to, to the best of my ability. I am satisfied. — Lee Kuan Yew

From 1945 to 1991, China was engaged in a series of wars that nearly broke them. This generation has been through hell: the Great Leap Forward, hunger, starvation, near collision with the Russians - the Cultural Revolution gone mad. I have no doubt that this generation wants a peaceful rise. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it. — Lee Kuan Yew

After trying out a number of ways to reduce inequalities and failing, I was gradually forced to conclude that the decisive factors were the people, their natural abilities, education and training. Knowledge and the possession of technology were vital for the creation of wealth. — Lee Kuan Yew

America's greatest long-term influence on China comes from playing host to the thousands of students who come from China each year, some of the ablest Chinese scholars and scientists. They will be the most powerful agents for change in China. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

I have decided that we shall make and build and never give way. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

The human being is an unequal creature. That is a fact. And we start off with the proposition. All the great religions, all the great movements, all the great political ideology, say let us make the human being as equal as possible. In fact, he is not equal, never will be. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

Singapore and China did not have diplomatic relations at that time [1976]. Communism is banned in Singapore, and nobody could visit China without official approval. The Singapore government had prohibited travel there for fear that Singaporeans would be subverted and converted to the communist cause. . .The travel ban was lifted after Lee Kuan Yew's visit. He realised that nobody could experience life there and be seduced by their system. Indeed, they would better appreciate what Singapore offered. — Cheong Yip Seng

If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have fostered one. — Lee Kuan Yew

It is not the practice, now will I allow subversives to get away by insisting that I've got to prove everything against them in a court of law or [produce] evidence that will stand up to the strict rules of evidence of a court of law. — Lee Kuan Yew

If you are going to lower me into the grave, and I feel something is wrong, I will get up. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think. — Lee Kuan Yew

The ideas of individual supremacy and the right of free expression, when carried to excess, have not worked. They have made it difficult to keep America society cohesive. Asia can see it is not working.. In America itself, there is widespread crime and violence, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attacks the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blames everyone but itself. — Lee Kuan Yew

If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you're putting yourself out of business. — Lee Kuan Yew

Start with putting three of your friends to jail. You definitely know what for, and people will believe you — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

The Bell curve is a fact of life. The blacks on average score 85 per cent on IQ and it is accurate, nothing to do with culture. The whites score on average 100. Asians score more ... the Bell curve authors put it at least 10 points higher. These are realities that, if you do not accept, will lead to frustration because you will be spending money on wrong assumptions and the results cannot follow. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

You either use the Internet or you are backward. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

One-man-one-vote is a most difficult form of government.. Results can be erratic. — Lee Kuan Yew

You begin your journey not knowing where it will take you. You have plans, you have dreams, but every now and again you have to take uncharted roads, face impassable mountains, cross treacherous rivers, be blocked by landslides and earthquakes. That's the way my life has been. — Lee Kuan Yew

I have never been over-concerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader. If you are concerned with whether your rating will go up or down, then you are not a leader. You are just catching the wind ... you will go where the wind is blowing. And that's not what I am in this for. — Lee Kuan Yew

If I were in authority in Singapore indefinitely without having to ask those who are governed whether they like what is being done, then I would not have the slightest doubt that I could govern much more effectively in their interests. — Lee Kuan Yew