Lee Kuan Yew Quotes

A society to be successful must maintain a balance between nurturing excellence and encouraging the average to improve.

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.

A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history.

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.

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

No, your job as a leader is to inspire and to galvanize, not to share your distraught thoughts. You make your people dispirited.

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.

Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards! This is your life and mine! I've spent a whole lifetime building this and as long as I'm in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.

If you do not know history, you think short term. If you know history, you think medium and long term

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.

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

I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils... I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, and then bullying my way to the top, that is the conclusion I've come to.

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.

He took over, and he said: 'If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it.'" - Recalling how former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping dealt with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests

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.

Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalisation. I do not believe that if you are libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed.

Mine is a very matter-of-fact approach to the problem. If you can select a population and they're educated and they're properly brought up, then you don't have to use too much of the stick because they would already have been trained. It's like with dogs. You train it in a proper way from small. It will know that it's got to leave, go outside to pee and to defecate. No, we are not that kind of society. We had to train adult dogs who even today deliberately urinate in the lifts.

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!

Men are not born equal in either physical or mental capacity. But a socialist believes that society as a whole will benefit, and there will be more happiness for more people, if all are given equal opportunities for education and advancement regardless of class or property.

You need, besides determination, all the other attributes that will push a project along. You must have application, you must be prepared to work hard, you must be prepared to get people to work with you.

I did not know I was to spend the rest of my life getting Singapore not just to work but to prosper and flourish.

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

Demography, not democracy, will be the most critical factor for security and growth in the 21st century

I always tried to be correct, not politically correct.

I wanted someone my equal, not someone who was not really grown up and needed looking after, and I was not likely to find another girl who was my equal and who shared my interests

That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure.

The future is as full of promise as it is fraught with uncertainty.

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.

The art of government is the art of building up team spirit.

I do not want to sound like a hawk or a dove. If I have to choose a metaphor from the aviary, I would like to think of the owl.

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

Elon Musk (of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity), Jeff Bezos (of Amazon), and Reed Hastings (of Netflix) are other great shapers from the business world. In philanthropy, Muhammad Yunus (of Grameen), Geoffrey Canada (of Harlem Children’s Zone), and Wendy Kopp (of Teach for America) come to mind; and in government, Winston Churchill, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lee Kuan Yew, and Deng Xiaoping. Bill Gates has been a shaper in both business and philanthropy, as was Andrew Carnegie. Mike Bloomberg has been a shaper in business, philanthropy, and government. Einstein, Freud, Darwin, and Newton were giant shapers in the sciences. Christ, Muhammad, and the Buddha were religious shapers. They all had original visions and successfully built them out.

I was also troubled by the apparent over-confidence of a generation that has only known stability, growth and prosperity. I thought our people should understand how vulnerable Singapore was and is, the dangers that beset us, and how we nearly did not make it. Most of all, I hope that they will know that honest and effective government, public order and personal security, economic and social progress did not come about as the natural course of events.

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. I cannot have that!" - Justifying million-dollar pay hike for Singapore ministers

The written English we want is clean, clear prose. I choose my words carefully – not elegant, not stylish, just clean, clear prose. It means simplifying, polishing and tightening.

in order to benefit from globalization, countries must ensure that their laws and institutions facilitate the global flow.

clean, efficient, rational, and predictable government is a competitive advantage.26

It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people, and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honorable place in history.14

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.

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."... quote from the book Hard Truth by Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

You can bargain for better wages, you can bargain for higher productivity bonuses. But once the bargain has been struck, then you must enter into the spirit of the agreement, and put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage. There must be no fooling around, work means discipline. Singapore’s success depends on the spirit in which workers, management and government, all three, enter into the spirit of cooperation, necessary for prosperity.

Human beings are created unequal, and no amount of social engineering or government intervention can significantly alter one’s lot in life. At most, government policies can help equalise opportunity at the starting point, but they cannot ensure equal outcomes. Society is bound to end up with unequal outcomes

Some people believe that, having debauched themselves in one political party or front, they can, like the phoenix, arise from the ashes of the old in the feathers of a new party, front or movement as fresh as if nothing had happened. In fact, there is no such magic formula for longevity in political life other than the simple and the obvious: just honour your promises; do not corrupt and debauch your party. 1956

Young people learn best from personal experience. The lessons their elders have learned at great pain and expense can add to the knowledge of the young and help them to cope with problems and dangers they had not faced before; but such learning, second hand, is never as vivid, as deep, or as durable as that which was personally experienced.

Over 100 years ago, this was a mud-flat, swamp. Today, this is a modern city. Ten years from now, this will be a metropolis. Never fear!

every word, every sentence, has three possible meanings: what the speaker intends it to mean, what the hearer understands it to mean, and what it is commonly understood to mean.

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.

There are really only two civilisations in Asia worth talking about – China and Persia.

If you want to thrive in the modern world, then you must not be afraid.

But it is possible to create a society in which everybody is given not equal rewards, but equal opportunities, and where rewards vary not in accordance with the ownership of property, but with the worth of a person's contribution to that society. In other words, society should make it worth people's while to give their best to the country. This is the way to progress.

One fundamental difference between American and Oriental culture is the individual’s position in society. In American culture an individual’s interest is primary. This makes American society more aggressively competitive, with a sharper edge and higher performance. In Singapore, the interests of the society take precedence over that of the individual. Nevertheless Singapore has to be competitive in the market for jobs, goods and services. On the other hand the government helps lower income groups to meet their needs for housing, health services and education so that their children will have more of an equal chance to rise through education.

If Mr Mah is unable to defend himself, he deserves to lose. No country in the world has given its citizens an asset as valuable as what we've given every family here. And if you say that policy is at fault, you must be daft." - when asked about a Straits Times report that cited keen opposition interest in contesting Tampines GRC, which National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan helms, so that they can raise the affordability of public housing as an election issue

There is a glorious rainbow that beckons those with the spirit of adventure. And there are rich findings at the end of that rainbow. To the young and the not too old, I say look at the horizon, find that rainbow, go ride it. Not all will be rich; quite a few will find a vein of gold; but all who pursue that rainbow will have a joyous and exhilarating ride and some profit.

There are three basic essentials for [the] successful transformation of any society. First, a determined leadership…two, an administration which is efficient; and three, social discipline.

Lee Kuan Yew ruled Singapore from 1959 until 1990, making him, we believe, the longest serving prime minister anywhere. His party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), dominated elections and that dominance was reinforced by the allocation of public housing, upon which most people in Singapore rely. Neighborhoods that fail to deliver PAP votes come election time found the provision and maintenance of housing cut off.18 In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe went one step further. In an operation called Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out the Rubbish), he used bulldozers to demolish the houses and markets in neighborhoods that failed to support him in the 2005 election.

People in Hong Kong depended not on the government but on themselves and their families. They worked hard and tried their luck in business, hawking or making widgets, or buying and selling. The drive to succeed was intense; family and extended family ties were strong. Long before Milton Friedman held up Hong Kong as a model of a free enterprise economy, I had seen the advantage of having little or no social safety net. It spurred Hong Kong's people to strive to succeed.

understood Deng Xiaoping when he said: if 200,000 students have to be shot, shoot them, because the alternative is China in chaos for another 100 years…Deng understood, and he released it stage by stage. Without Deng, China would have imploded.36

We accept human nature as it is, then we base our system on it. Your system must accept that human nature is like that. You get the best out of people for society by incentives and disincentives. If you remove too much of their rewards from the top tier, they will migrate.

Every time we look back on this moment when we signed this agreement which severed Singapore from Malaysia, it will be a moment of anguish. For me it is a moment of anguish because all my life … you see, the whole of my adult life … I have believed in Malaysia, merger and the unity of these two territories. You know, it’s a people, connected by geography, economics and ties of kinship … Would you mind if we stop for a while?

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!

I noticed that Asiatics were now referred to as Asians in the papers. I was told that sometime in 1953 the British press had started to use “Asian” because “Asiatic” had a touch of condescension or disrespect, and the change was a concession to the people of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, now independent. I did not understand how this improved their status. When young London children called me a Chinaman or a Chink, it did not trouble me. If they meant it as a term of abuse, my business was to make them think differently one day.

My life is not guided by philosophy or theories. I get things done and leave others to extract the principles from my successful solutions. I do not work on a theory.

Admission was on the basis of merit. Students were of all races, all classes and all religions.

It was the first time I had left Singapore to go overseas. I was being exposed to a new world of the hates and loves, the prejudices and biases of different peoples

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

Revolutionary situations throw up great leaders who demand blood, sweat, and tears; comfortable circumstances produce leaders who promise people an even easier life.

A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people, and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honorable place in history.

What worries you about U.S. culture? I find parts of it totally unacceptable: guns, drugs, violent crime, vagrancy, unbecoming behavior in public, in sum, the breakdown of civil society. The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or misbehave as he or she pleases has come at the expense of orderly society…It has a lot to do with the erosion of the moral underpinnings of a society and the diminution of personal responsibility.

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.

One person, one vote is a most difficult form of government. From time to time, the results can be erratic. People are sometimes fickle. They get bored with stable, steady improvements in life, and in a reckless moment, they vote for a change for change’s sake.

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, plus enabling the maximum of personal freedoms compatible with the freedoms of others in society.

We faced tremendous odds with an improbable chance of survival. Singapore was not a natural country but man-made, a trading post the British had developed into a nodal point in their worldwide maritime empire. We inherited the island without its hinterland, a heart without a body.

One of the reasons why a privileged society based on the privilege of property and rank must give way to a society where people are rewarded according to their ability and their contribution to society is that it is only when people are encouraged to give their best that society progresses.

But for a very small number of people, what we stood for could easily have done a great deal of good for Malaysia and established it for many centuries to come as a stable and viable multiracial nation. ... Kinship and feelings for one another cannot be legislated out by a political decision.

For at 60, more than at 50, comes the realization of the transient nature of all earthly glories and successes, and the ephemeral quality of sensory joys and pleasures, when compared to intellectual, moral, or spiritual satisfactions…I have wondered how much of what I am is nature and how much was nurture?

And so two dogs are swimming in the waters between Singapore and Borneo—but in opposite directions. They pause halfway to exchange greetings. The dog headed toward Borneo asked the other dog why he’s swimming to Singapore. The answer: “Ah, the shopping, the housing, the air conditioning, the health care, the schools. So why are you going to Borneo?” Says the dog from Singapore: “Oh, I just want to bark.” The

At a farewell dinner, the editors gave [S.R. Nathan] a porcelain bowl. For the day before he joined us, the PM had told him: "Nathan, I am giving you The Straits Times. It has 140 years of history. It's like a bowl of china. You break it, I can piece it together, but it will never be the same." I was struck by the way the PM made his point – he knew the value and place of The Straits Times in Singapore's past, present and future.

Moreover, the new wealth the region now enjoys is convincing East Asians to revisit their ancient culture with fresh, more confident eyes. No longer does success automatically equate with westernization; East Asians are finding new value in their old practices, teachings, and traditions. “The 200 years of Western colonization and domination of Asia was like pouring concrete slabs over Asia’s history,” Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and one of Asia’s most influential academics, told me over lunch in Beijing. “For Asia to modernize, Asia had to reject its past. Asia’s past was a burden so they focused on learning the best of the West. But now that they have succeeded, they are in a position to reengage with their past in a different way. You have to develop what I call ‘cultural confidence.’ What Asia is doing is finally drilling through those slabs and reconnecting back with its past. There will be a kind of cultural renaissance taking place in Asia.” He calls this trend “the most significant thing happening in Asia today.

All leaders were equal at the conference table, but those from heavyweight countries showed that they were more equal by arriving in big private jets, the British in their VC 10s and Comets, and the Canadians in Boeings. The Australians joined this select group in 1979, after Malcolm Fraser's government purchased a Boeing 707 for the Royal Australian Air Force. Those African presidents whose countries were then better off, like Kenya and Nigeria, also had special aircraft. I wondered why they did not set out to impress the world that they were poor and in dire need of assistance. Our permanent representative at the UN in New York explained that the poorer the country, the bigger the Cadillacs they hired for their leaders. So I made a virtue of arriving by ordinary commercial aircraft, and thus helped preserve Singapore's third World status for many years. However, by the mid-1990s, the World Bank refused to heed our pleas not to reclassify us as a "High Income Developing Country", giving no Brownie points for my frugal travel habits. We lost all the concessions that were given to developing countries.

One of the reasons why a privileged society based on the privilege of property and rank must give way to a society where people are rewarded according to their ability and their contribution to society is that it is only when people are encouraged to give their best that society progresses. No society has existed in history where all people were equal and obtained equal rewards. If that were to be practiced, and the lazy and the incompetent were paid as much as the industrious and the intelligent, it would end up by all the good people giving as little of themselves so as not to give more than their weaker brethren. But it is possible to create a society in which everybody is given not equal rewards, but equal opportunities, and where rewards vary not in accordance with the ownership of property, but with the worth of a person’s contribution to that society. In other words, society should make it worth people’s while to give their best to the country. This is the way to progress.

Some of the foreign writers and thinkers who have influenced me include Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Daniel Kahneman, Lee Kuan Yew, Nassim Taleb, Karl Popper, Charles Darwin, Sun Tzu, Vidiadhar Naipaul and Jane Jacobs, to name a few.

Without an FTA, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the ASEAN countries will be integrated into China’s economy—an outcome to be avoided.

At first sight, this is a struggle between extremist radicals in the Muslim world on one side and America, Israel, and their Western allies on the other. But look deeper and you will see that at its heart, it is a struggle about what Islam means between the extremist Muslims and the rationalist Muslims, between fundamentalist Muslims and modernist Muslims.

The majority of Muslims who are moderates are caught in between (1) their sympathy for and identification with the Palestinians and anger against the Israelis, and (2) their desire for a peaceful life of growth and progress. To resolve the problem of terrorism, the U.S. and others must support the tolerant non-militant Muslims so that they will prevail.

If a people have lost faith completely in their democratic institutions because they cannot find people of caliber to run them, however good that system, it perishes. Ultimately, it is the people who run the system who make it come to life.

America is a great nation not just because of its power and wealth, but mainly because it is a nation moved by high ideals. Only the elevating power of her idealism can explain the benign manner in which America has exercised its enormous power since the end of World War II and the magnanimity and generosity with which it has shared its wealth to rebuild a more prosperous world.

China wants to be China and accepted as such—not as an honorary member of the West.

All leaders were equal at the conference table, but those from heavyweight countries showed that they were more equal by arriving in big private jets, the British in their VC 10s and Comets, and the Canadians in Boeings. The Australians joined this select group in 1979, after Malcolm Fraser's government purchased a Boeing 707 for the Royal Australian Air Force. Those African presidents whose countries were then better off, like Kenya and Nigeria, also had special aircraft. I wondered why they did not set out to impress the world that they were poor and in dire need of assistance. Our permanent representative at the UN in New York explained that the poorer the country, the bigger the Cadillacs they hired for their leaders. So I made a virtue of arriving by ordinary commercial aircraft, and thus helped preserve Singapore's third World status for many years. However, by the mid-1990s, the World Bank refused to heed our pleas not to reclassify us as a "High Income Developing Country", giving no Brownie points for my frugal travel habits. We lost all the concessions that were given to developing countries.

Failure to flush a public toilet is a misdemeanor carrying a stiff fine and Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew requested weekly reports on the state of the toilets at Changi airport.

Workers in the new economy cannot be content with just problem solving and perfecting the known. They must be enterprising and innovative, always seeking new ways of doing the job, to create the extra value, the extra edge.

We have exercised power as trustees for the people, with an abiding sense of our fiduciary responsibility…When those in office regard the power vested in them as a personal prerogative, they inevitably enrich themselves, promote their families, and favor their friends. The fundamental structures of the modern state are eroded, like the supporting beams of a house after termites have attacked them. Then the people have to pay dearly and long for the sins and crimes of their leaders.

The easy things—just getting a blank mind to take in knowledge and become trainable—we have done. Now comes the difficult part. To get literate and numerate minds to be more innovative, to be more productive, is not easy. It requires a mindset change, a different set of values.

He was a tall, energetic, self-made man who had taught himself accountancy and banking through correspondence courses and had risen to his present position in the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation on his own merits, having neither relatives to give him a push nor money to buy promotion.

These people come from poor and middle-class homes. They come from different language schools. Singapore is a meritocracy. And these men have risen to the top by their own merit, hard work and high performance.

The business of a government is to…make firm decisions so that there can be certainty and stability in the affairs of the people.

National interest is often subservient to special interests. Many needed reforms have been stalled due to opposition from special interest groups. Special interests thrive in an atmosphere of populism. In the last 20 years, there has been a proliferation of schemes for cheap food, free power, and subsidized loans…They impose a heavy cost on the whole economy…The distinction between welfare and populism has blurred.

Civilizations emerge because human societies in a given condition respond to the challenge. Where the challenge is just about right…the human being flourishes.

We have arranged help, but in such a way that only those who have no other choice will seek it. This is the opposite of attitudes in the West, where liberals actively encourage people to demand entitlements with no sense of shame, causing an explosion of welfare costs.41

want to run the system as efficiently as possible, but make allowances for those who will not be doing well because nature did not give them enough, or they cannot make that extra effort…I

They had no confidence in themselves and even less in their own kind.