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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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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
Singapore
Successful
Given
Ends
Life

More quotes by Lee Kuan Yew

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I have decided that we shall make and build and never give way.
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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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 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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Usually I read biographies of interesting people. I am not attracted to novels - make-believe, or recreations of what people think life should be.
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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I wish I can meet my wife in the hereafter, but I don't think I will. I just cease to exist just as she has ceased to exist.
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
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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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As you solve one set of problems, new ones appear. That is part of the nature of life.
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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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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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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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.
Lee Kuan Yew
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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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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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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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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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I’m not interested in changing either my suit or my car or whatever with every change in fashion. That’s irrelevant. I don’t judge myself or my friends by their fashions. Of course, I don’t approve of people who are sloppy and unnecessarily shabby or dishevelled… But I’m not impressed by a US$5,000 or US$10,000 Armani suit.
Lee Kuan Yew