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Lee Kuan Yew
81 quotes
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates (21 Sept 1955)
“If we say that we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of a democratic society is one which allows for the free play of idea...then, in the name of all the gods, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Legislative Assembly (4 October 1956)
“Repression can only go up to a point. When it becomes too acute, the instruments of repression, namely the army and the police, have been proved time and time again in history to have turned their guns on their masters.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew Straits Times (5 May 1959)
“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 have not the slightest doubt that I could govern much more effectively in their interests.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio Interview, 1960. Quoted in South-East Asia: A Political Profile, Damien Kingsbury (2001, p. 337)
“How does the Malay in the kampong find his way out into this modernised civil society? By becoming servants of the 0.3 per cent who would have the money to hire them to clean their shoe, open their motorcar doors?”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965
“They (the Malay extremists) have triggered off something basic and fundamental. Malaysia — to whom does it belong? To Malaysians. But who are Malaysians? I hope I am, Mr Speaker, Sir. But sometimes, sitting in this chamber, I doubt whether I am allowed to be a Malaysian. This is the doubt that hangs over many minds, and the next contest, if this goes on, will be on very different lines.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia (1965)
“Once emotions are set in motion, and men pitted against men along these unspoken lines, you will have the kind of warfare that will split the nation from top to bottom and undo Malaysia. Everybody knows it. I don't have to say it. It is the unspoken word!”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965
“According to history, Malays began to migrate to Malaysia in noticeable numbers only about 700 years ago. Of the 39 percent Malays in Malaysia today, about one-third are comparatively new immigrants like the secretary-general of UMNO, Dato' Syed Ja'afar Albar, who came to Malaya from Indonesia just before the war at the age of more than thirty. Therefore it is wrong and illogical for a particular racial group to think that they are more justified to be called Malaysians and that the others can become Malaysian only through their favour.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew (in 1964 or 1965), — Ye, Lin-Sheng (2003). The Chinese Dilemma, p. 43. East West Publishing. .
“For me, it is a moment of anguish. All my life, my whole adult life, I believed in merger and unity of the two territories.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: when Lee announced the separation of Singapore from Malaysia (9 August 1965), as quoted in The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and Resistance, Terence Chong
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1967), cited in Lee Kuan Yew: race, culture and genes, Michael Barr in Journal of Contemporary Asia (January 1999)
“The Americans should know the character of the men they are dealing with in Singapore and not get themselves further dragged into calumny ... They are not dealing with Ngo Dinh Diem or Syngman Rhee. You do not buy and sell this Government.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (2 September 1965), in reaction to a $3.3 million bribe offered by the CIA in exchange for the release of an agent
“The ending of colonialism does not in itself result in social and economic progress: it provides the opportunities for it.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the non-aligned summit in Lusaka (1970), quoted in "The man who worked an economic miracle", The Times (20 December 1984), p. 8
“What role would men and governments in new countries like the mass media to play?... The mass media can help to present Singapore's problems simply and clearly and then explain how if they support certain programmes and policies these problems can be solved. More important, we want the mass media to reinforce, not to undermine, the cultural values and social attitudes being inculcated in our schools and universities.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address To The General Assembly Of The International Press Institute At Helsinki Wednesday (9 June 1971)
“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.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address To The General Assembly Of The International Press Institute At Helsinki Wednesday (9 June 1971)
“I don't know why Amnesty International always picks on people who are not very popular with Communists.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement (1974), quoted in "The man who worked an economic miracle", The Times (20 December 1984), p. 8
“If all the 300 (top civil servants and political elite) were to crash in one jumbo jet, then Singapore will disintegrate.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how Singapore does not need multiparty politics (1975)
“We have a reputation, which I hope is somewhat deserved, that we are a kind of little Switzerland in South-East Asia.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Commonwealth conference (1975), quoted in "The man who worked an economic miracle", The Times (20 December 1984), p. 8
“Our unions are different: if we had British-style trade unionism we should be bankrupt, finished.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement (1976), quoted in "The man who worked an economic miracle", The Times (20 December 1984), p. 8
“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.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rally in 1980, related to the then-ongoing Singapore Airlines pilot strikes due to salary issue
“Look, Jeyaretnam can't win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time... I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as recounted by former President C. V. Devan Nair (1981), as quoted in Beyond suspicion?: the Singapore judiciary, Francis T. Seow
“Let us not deceive ourselves: our talent profile is nowhere near that of, say, the Jews or the Japanese in America. The exceptional number of Nobel Prize winners who are Jews is no accident. It is also no accident that a high percentage, sometimes 50%, of faculty members in the top American universities on both the east and west coasts are Jews. And the number of high calibre Japanese academics, professionals, and business executives is out of all proportion to the percentage of Japanese in the total American population”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Search for Talent" (12 August 1982)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Day Rally (1983). Cited in The Coming Population Crash: And Our Planet's Surprising Future, Fred Pearce
“I make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (quoted in Milne and Mauzy 1990, p. 85)
“Equal employment opportunities, yes, but we shouldn't get our women into jobs where they cannot, at the same time, be mothers...our most valuable asset is in the ability of our people, yet we are frittering away this asset through the unintended consequences of changes in our education policy and equal opportunities for women. This has affected their traditional role … as mothers, the creators and protectors of the next generation.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1923–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Without the CPF), Singaporeans would buy enormous quantities of clothes, shoes, furniture, television sets, radio, tape recorders, hi-fis, washing machines, motor cars. They would have no substantial or permanent asset to show for it.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Asian Wall Street Journal, Oct 21 1985
“Mah Bow Tan, age 16, took his 'O' levels - six distinctions, two credits. Mr Chiam, age 18 - 1953 I think - six credits, one pass. He passed his English language, not bad. The next year, in 1954, he worked harder, he got a credit for his English. So you see, it's not because he doesn't know English that he found difficult in expressing himself. It's what's inside here *tapping his head*. And you better search your inside here before you cast your votes. Goodbye and good luck.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Fullerton Square dissing Chiam See tong (19 December 1984)
“It is necessary to try and put some safeguards into the way in which people use their votes to bargain, to coerce, to push, to jostle and get what they want without running the risk of losing the services of the government, because one day, by mistake, they will lose the services of the government... You unscramble Singapore, well, you'll never put Humpty Dumpty together again”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On tweaking the one-man one-vote system after losing 2 seats to non-PAP Candidates, The Straits Times (24 December 1984)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1986)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew Straits Times (20 April 1987)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1988 National Day Rally, when he discussed the leadership transition to Goh Chok Tong in 1990. As quoted in The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume 2, The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
“Malays abhor the state of celibacy. To remain unmarried was and is considered shameful. Everyone must be married at some time or other. The result is that whether a person is fit or unfit for marriage, he or she still marries and reproduces. An idiot or a simpleton is often married off to an old widower, ostensibly to take care of him in his old age. If this is not possible, backward relatives are paired off in marriage. These people survive, reproduce and propagate their species. The cumulative effect of this can be left to the imagination.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We allow American journalists in Singapore in order to report Singapore to their fellow countrymen...But we cannot allow them to assume a role in Singapore that the American media play in America, that is, that of invigilator, adversary and inquisitor of the administration.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Day speech in 1984. Quoted in S. Balakrishna Seventy Years of Secularism (2018).
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew in speech "Democracy, Human Rights and the Realities", Tokyo (10 November 1992)
“It's not that we don't have single mothers here. We are also caught in the same social problems of change when we educate our women and they become independent financially and no longer need to put up with unhappy marriages. But there is grave disquiet when we break away from tested norms, and the tested norm is the family unit. It is the building brick of society. Governments will come, governments will go, but this endures.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew Interview with Fareed Zakaria Foreign Policy (1994)
“And now in America itself after 30 years of experimenting with the Great Society programmes, there is widespread crime and violence, children kill each other with guns, neigbourhoods are insecure, 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 (1923–2015) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew Interview with Nathan Gardels Global Viewpoint (26 September 1995)
“I have visited (Burma) and I know that there is only one instrument of government, and that is the army...If I were Aung San Suu Kyi, I think I'd rather be behind a fence and be a symbol than after two or three years, be found impotent.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SM Lee Kuan Yew, Reuters (6 June 1996), which sparked a flurry of protests from Burmese students.
“Ministers who deal with billions of dollars cannot be paid low salaries without risking a system malfunction. Low salaries will not attract able men who are or can be successful in their professions or business. Low salaries will draw in the hypocrites who sweet talk their way into power in the name of public services, but once in charge will show their true colour, and ruin the country. This has happened in many countries.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SM Lee Kuan Yew Speech to the National Trade Union Congress at the Singapore Conference Hall, as reported by the Frontier Center for Public Policy (19 July 1996)
“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.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore society, The Man & His Ideas (1997)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SM Lee Kuan Yew The Man and His Ideas (1997)
“Supposing I'm now 21, 22, what would I do? I would not be absorbed in wanting to change life in Singapore. I'm not responsible for Singapore...Why should I go and undertake this job and spend my whole life pushing this for a lot of people for whom nothing is good enough? I will have a fall-back position, which many are doing - have a house in Perth or Vancouver or Sydney, or an apartment in London, in case I need some place suddenly, and think about whether I go on to America.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SM Lee Kuan Yew The Man & His Ideas (1997)
“What people mean by consultation is an imitation of what they see in America; pressure groups and lobby groups..It's an unthinking adoption of Western practices of development without any pruning and modification to suit our circumstances.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew The Man & His Ideas (1997)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew The Man & His Ideas (1997)
“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, that is the conclusion I've come to.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew The Man & His Ideas (1997)
“So when people say, 'Oh, ask the people!' It's childish rubbish. We are leaders. We know the consequences. You mean that ice-water man knows the consequences of his vote? They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly believe that the chap who can't pass primary six knows the consequences of his choice when he answers a question viscerally on language, culture and religion?”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kwan Yew The Man & His Ideas (1998)
“I bent over a chair and was given three of the best with my trousers on. I did not think he lightened his strokes. I have never understood why Western educationists are so much against corporal punishment. It did my fellow students and me no harm.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (1998)
“I have never been over concerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader. 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 (1923–2015) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (1998), as quoted by Business Insider
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SM Lee Kuan Yew The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (1998)
“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 (1923–2015) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SM Lee Kuan Yew Straits Times (19 September 1999) on Malays in the Singapore Armed Forces
“India is a nation of unfulfilled greatness. Its potential has lain fallow, under used.”
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lee Kuan Yew in the second volume of his memoirs, published in 2000, quoted at