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China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the United States can draw on a talent pool of 7 billion and recombine them in a diverse culture that enhances creativity in a way that ethnic Han nationalism cannot.

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
China
Ethnic
Creativity
Nationalism
Talent
Diverse
United
Pool
Culture
Billion
Cannot
Billions
States
Draw
Way
Draws
Enhances

More quotes by 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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Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?
Lee Kuan Yew
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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.
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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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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I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been... But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to.
Lee Kuan Yew
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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.
Lee Kuan Yew
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Life is not just eating, drinking, television and cinema...The human mind must be creative, must be self-generating it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself.
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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I am not given to making sense out of life - or coming up with some grand narrative on it - other than to measure it by what you think you want to do in life. As for me, I have done what I had wanted to, to the best of my ability. I am satisfied.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I’m very determined. If I decide that something is worth doing, then I’ll put my heart and soul to it. The whole ground can be against me, but if I know it is right, I’ll do it.
Lee Kuan Yew
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I have been accused of many things in my life, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind.
Lee Kuan Yew
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For the young, let me tell you the sky has turned brighter. There's a glorious rainbow that beckons those with the spirit of adventure. And there are rich findings at the end of the rainbow. To the young and to the not-so-old, I say, look at that horizon, follow that rainbow, go ride it.
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 always tried to be correct, not politically correct.
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 make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.
Lee Kuan Yew
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Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalization.. I hold unconventional views about this.. I do not believe if you are a libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed.
Lee Kuan Yew
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What are our priorities? First, the welfare, the survival of the people. Then, democratic norms and processes which from time to time we have to suspend.
Lee Kuan Yew