Lee Kuan Yew Quotes

“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 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.”

“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...”

“You know the Singaporean. He is a hard-working, industrious, rugged individual. Or we would not have made the grade. But let us also recognise that he is a champion grumbler.”

“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.”

“Even from my sick bed, I will continue to work for Singapore.”

“What I fear is complacency. When things always become better, people tend to want more for less work.”

“I have always believed that the best way to govern is to be firm but fair.”

“If you don't have a plan, you are part of someone else's plan.”

“I am not a man of the people. I am a man of the nation.”

“The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.”

“I have no regrets about my life. I have done what I thought was best for Singapore.”

“We just about made it. We could easily have failed. If we hadn't made it then, I doubt if we could make it now. If we had thrown away the chances that came our way then in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, I think to restart now would have been very difficult. You had to preempt certain positions.”

“We do not expect something for nothing. We haven't got oil and minerals on which other people have to pay royalties. So we develop a different approach to life.”

“That man faced reality. I'm convinced that his visit to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, that journey, in November '78, was a shock to him. He expected three backward cities. Instead he saw three modern cities and he knew that communism — the politics of the iron rice bowl — did not work.”

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

“Countries that are agricultural can, at a low standard of living, sustain themselves. Singapore never was an agricultural country. When the British came here in 1819, they found a fishing village of about 120 people — no agriculture, because the ground was infertile.”

“If you want to enthuse people to join you and to throw the British out, you've got to hold out to them the expectation of some benefit. And the benefit was we'll share all these fine things the British had. But, of course, the more people to share, then there were fine things. So the next problem is: How do we create more fine things?”

“One of the asymmetries of history is the lack of correspondence between the abilities of some leaders and the power of their countries.”

“If you will make a study of the life and work of Lee Kuan Yew, you will find one of the most interesting and instructive political stories written in the history of mankind. This is better than Athens.”