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We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins.

Lee Kuan Yew

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Lee Kuan Yew
Age: 91 †
Born: 1923
Born: September 16
Died: 2015
Died: March 23
Autobiographer
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Singaporean Politician
Statesperson
Republic of Singapore
LKY
Harry Lee
MM Lee
Li Guangyao
People
Ruins
Trials
Extremists
Religious
Communists
Whether
Extremist
Language
Lock
Without
Locks
Country
Trial
Would
Communist

More quotes by Lee Kuan Yew

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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.
Lee Kuan Yew
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If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana.
Lee Kuan Yew
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Singaporeans, if I can chose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer, the foreign talent are the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never hangs because you got enormous storage capacity.
Lee Kuan Yew
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Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.
Lee Kuan Yew
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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.
Lee Kuan Yew
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At the end of the day, what I cherish most are the human relationships. With the unfailing support of my wife and partner I have lived my life to the fullest. It is the friendships I made and the close family ties I nurtured that have provided me with that sense of satisfaction at a life well lived, and have made me what I am.
Lee Kuan Yew
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You begin your journey not knowing where it will take you. You have plans, you have dreams, but every now and again you have to take uncharted roads, face impassable mountains, cross treacherous rivers, be blocked by landslides and earthquakes. That's the way my life has been.
Lee Kuan Yew
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It is not the practice, now will I allow subversives to get away by insisting that I’ve got to prove everything against them in a court of law or [produce] evidence that will stand up to the strict rules of evidence of a court of law.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I think in Singapore, we stand a chance of making the one-man-one-vote system work. With amendments as we have done, you know, like GRCs.. We need to make it work. And I believe with pragmatic adjustments, given these favourable conditions, we can have more open debate.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.
Lee Kuan Yew
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If you are a troublemaker, it’s our job to politically destroy you. Put it this way. As long as JB Jeyaretnam stands for what he stands for – a thoroughly destructive force – we will knock him. Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I don't believe in love at first sight. I think it's a grave mistake.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I have no regrets. I have spent my life, so much of it, building up this country. There's nothing more that I need to do. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.
Lee Kuan Yew
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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.
Lee Kuan Yew
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Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don’t understand this.
Lee Kuan Yew
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Nine holes of golf will take you one-and-a-half, two hours. I run in 20 minutes, I feel better off. So the cost benefit made me drop golf.
Lee Kuan Yew
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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.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God... So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God - nor deny that there could be one.
Lee Kuan Yew
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The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge.
Lee Kuan Yew
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With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient.
Lee Kuan Yew