Lee Kuan Yew Quotes

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Lee Kuan Yew

Profession : Statesman

Birth : September 16, 1923

The original communitarianism of Chinese Confucian society has degenerated into nepotism, a system of family linkages, and corruption, on the mainland. And remnants of the evils of the original system are still found in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew

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

I know if I rest, I'll slide downhill fast.

Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

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

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

Peace and security in the Asia-Pacific will turn on whether China emerges as a xenophobic, chauvinistic force, bitter and hostile to the West because it tried to slow down or abort its development, or whether it is educated and involved in the ways of the world - more cosmopolitan, more internationalized and outward looking.

Lee Kuan Yew

How do I comfort myself? Well, I say, 'Life is just like that.'

Lee Kuan Yew

The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions which are inimical to development.

Lee Kuan Yew

I always tried to be correct, not politically correct.

Lee Kuan Yew

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.

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

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

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

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 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

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 enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property - a set back for civilisation.

Lee Kuan Yew

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.

Lee Kuan Yew