Lee Kuan Yew Quotes (1923-2015)

“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.”

“[T]he ested norm is the family unit. It is the building brick of society. Governments will come, governments will go, but this endures.”

“I had no faith in a system that allowed the superstition, ignorance, biases, and prejudices of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence.”

“[T]here 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.”

“Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them.”

“Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them.”

“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.”

“Certain basics about human nature do not change. Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them.”

“You’re talking about Rwanda or Bangladesh, or Cambodia, or the Philippines. They’ve got democracy, according to Freedom House. But have you got a civilized life to lead? People want economic development first and foremost. The leaders may talk something else. 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.”

“His weapon was the typewriter, He loved putting up the drafts of the ideology, which was a group consensus.”

“The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial...”

“Sir Alec Douglas-Home was the nicest of them all—a real gentleman whose manner on television belied the shrewd geopolitical thinker he was. He might have counted with matchsticks as he candidly admitted, but he had more solid sense than many cerebral ministers on both front benches.”

“I feel sad to see a very old friend with whom I had worked closely over the last 30 years, not really getting the honours that he deserves. The younger generations, both in Indonesia and in the world, do not remember where Indonesia started. Yes, there was corruption. Yes, he gave favours to his family and his friends. But there was real growth and real progress.”

“Sihanouk was an extraordinary personality, highly intelligent and full of energy and joie de vivre. He had the airs and graces of an educated French gentleman, with allt he accompanying gestures and mannerisms, and spoken English the French way. Medium in height, a little rotund, he had a broad face with flared nostrils like the stone carvings on the temples around Angkor Wat.”

“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.”

“This misfortune of the Americans in South Vietnam was to allow the world to believe that they were supporting a reactionary, autocratic regime run by one man called Ngo Dinh Diem and supported by his family and all this was in aid of America's strategic interest to contain Communism. Whatever American intentions were, they allowed Afro-Asia to believe this, with catastrophic results, both for Ngo Dinh Diem and for the Americans who came to help him.”

“Of all the prime ministers, I thought she offered the best hope for Britain. Her strengths were her passionate belief in her country and her iron will to turn it around. She was convinced that free enterprise and the free market led to a free society. Her basic political instincts were sound though she tended to be too self-confident and self-righteous. Her disadvantage, in a class-conscious Britain, was her background as "the grocer's daughter". It was a pity that the British establishment still labored under these prejudices. By the time she left office, Britons had become less class-ridden.”

“The most politically skillful of them was Harold Wilson. It was my good fortune that we were friends before he became prime minister. I was able to persuade him to remain east of Suez for a few years longer... The problems he faced in Britain were deep-seated—lowered levels of education and skills, lower productivity because unions were not cooperating with management. The Labour Party in the 1960s and 1970s was dominated by the trade unions and could not tackle these basic issues, hence Wilson was seen as going for quick fixes. To keep the party behind him, he had to zigzag, making him appear wily and devious.”

“Sihanouk’s son, Prince Ranariddh, I had met several times between 1981 and 1991. His father had placed him in charge of the royalist forces near the Thai border with Cambodia. Ranariddh resembled his father in voice, mannerisms, facial expression, and body language. He was darker-complexioned and smaller, more equable in temperament and less swayed by the mood of the moment, but otherwise much in the same mold. He had his father’s fluency in French and had taught law in Lyon University before he took over the leadership of the royalist forces. When I inspected their training camp in northeast Thailand in the 1980s I noted that it was not well organized and lacked military spirit. It was the best Ranariddh could do because, like him, his generals and officers spent more time in Bangkok than in the camp. As we were supporting them with weapons and radio equipment, I felt disappointed. After the 1991 settlement, the big aid donors took over. Ranariddh became the first prime minister (with Hun Sen as second prime minister) when his party won the 1993 UN-organized election. When we met in Singapore that August, I warned him that the coalition was a precarious arrangement. The military, police, and administration belonged to Hun Sen. If he wanted to survive, Ranariddh had to win over a part of Hun Sen’s army and police officers and some of the provincial governors. Being called the first prime minister and having his man appointed dense minister were of little value when the officers and troops were loyal to Hun Sen. He probably did not take my words to heart. He might have believed that his royal blood would assure him the support of the people, that he would be irreplaceable. - by Lee Kuan Yew, Senior Minister of Singapore in his memoirs”

“An intellectual through and through, he had been the most brilliant schoolboy of his age in Singapore... He took a Double First in Law at Cambridge... Lee was brought up in English, which he speaks far better than most British politicians, and learned Mandarin as well as Malay only when he entered politics. Yet he is immensely proud that his Chinese ancestry makes him part of the oldest, and, as he would say, the greatest culture in the world. He is especially proud of being of the Hakka people, which originated in North China. The Hakka are the Prussians of China, and there is a lot of the Prussian in Lee Kuan Yew. He believes in discipline and hard work.”

“Lee Kuan Yew (born 1923) narrowly escaped execution by the occupying Japanese in 1942. Lee shaped the evolution of an impoverished, multiethnic port city at the edge of the Pacific, surrounded by hostile neighbors. Under his tutelage, Singapore emerged as a secure, well-administered and prosperous city-state with a shared national identity providing unity amid cultural diversity.”

“[H]e was the most important Asian statesman of his generation, an achievement all the more remarkable for being based on the small state of Singapore. He had his own kind of democracy to be sure, but his strong commitment to free-market capitalism had done wonders for the tiny island which he governed.”