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
leadership vision progress
A leader without the vision, to strive to improve things, is no good. Then you will just stay put, you won't progress.
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.
study formulas ifs
If there was one formula for our success,it was that we were constantly studying how to make things work,or how to make them work better.
winning democracy pushing
There is nothing to prevent you from pushing your propaganda, to push your programme out to the students or with the public at large…and if you can carry the ground, if you are right, you win. That’s democracy.
party simple government
They say, oh, let’s have multiparty politics. Let’s have different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished.
politically-correct
I always tried to be correct, not politically correct.
strong hard-work leader
The task of the leaders must be to provide or create for them a strong framework within which they can learn, work hard, be productive and be rewarded accordingly. And this is not easy to achieve.
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
successful the-end-of-the-day given
At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.
stupid people support
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.
freedom liberty realist
I am ... a realist. The magnitude of what one terms license or civil liberties or personal freedom has got to be adjusted to the circumstances.
needs enough sanguine
I feel sanguine enough to say that there has never been a better set of conditions for open democratic politics because there is no need for unified front politics.
singapore always-believe ifs
Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.
consequence
What is of consequence is I did my best.