Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH, SPMJ, informally known by his initials LKY, was the first Prime Minister of Singapore, governing for three decades. Lee is recognised as the nation's founding father, with the country described as transitioning from the "third world to first world in a single generation" under his leadership...
ProfessionStatesman
Date of Birth16 September 1923
men years law
We have over a hundred political detainees, men against whom we are unable to prove anything in a court of law. Nearly 50 of them are men who gave us a great deal of anxiety during the years of Confrontation because they were Malay extremists. Your life and this dinner would not be what it is if my colleagues and I had decided to play it according to the rules of the game.
years people fool
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!
years way repent
If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent.
school thinking years
I don't think I made a conscious decision as a career choice. From my school days I had decided, persuaded by my parents, to prepare myself for the law. Then the Japanese occupation came and we went through three and a half years of what I would call the university of life, it was hard, it was harsh.
years students disorder
If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it.
army years two
Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it
jobs war years
I was a product of the times, the war, the occupation, the reoccupation, my 4 years in Britain, admiring but at the same time questioning whether they are able to do a better job than we can.
believe government heads permanent prime
Those who believe that after I have left the government as prime minister, I will go into a permanent retirement, really should have their heads examined.
became began countries phrase
The First World became a popular phrase in about the 1970s and '80s. The World Bank then began categorizing countries in different categories, advanced to the least developed.
according china global good nixon pieces position pragmatic quietly
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.
basic children chinese english learned
My children were educated in what were then Chinese schools, and they learned English as a subject. But they made up when they went to English-language universities. So they didn't lose out. They had a basic set of traditional Confucian values. Not my grandchildren.
came family fulfill fulfilled government less modern seen societies successful war
In the West, especially after World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family.
contention enjoyment everybody exist freedom main maximum natural object ordered society state
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.
cope given gone grandson overcome school speaks teach teachers
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.