Start with putting three of your friends to jail. You definitely know what for, and people will believe you — Lee Kuan Yew

I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think it’s a grave mistake. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

China is not going to become a liberal democracy; if it did, it would collapse. I do not believe you can impose on other countries standards which are alien and totally disconnected with their past. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless. — Lee Kuan Yew

China wants to be China and accepted as such–not as an honorary member of the West. — Lee Kuan Yew

If you are going to lower me into the grave, and I feel something is wrong, I will get up. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

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

I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality. And I mean generally, every year, when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that’s life. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

As you solve one set of problems, new ones appear. That is part of the nature of life. — Lee Kuan Yew

It’s irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. I’ve lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you’re dead. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

All my life… I believed in Malaysian merger and unity of the two territories. You know that we, as a people, are connected by geography, economics, by ties of kinship. — Lee Kuan Yew

At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life. — Lee Kuan Yew

The enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property–a set back for civilisation. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

I believe that life is a process of continuous change and a constant struggle to make that change one for the better. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

What I fear is complacency. When things always become better, people tend to want more for less work. — Lee Kuan Yew

Well if done a lot of hard work to try and get people to act rationally, the fact that weve had 15 deviant Muslims, plus 5 or 8 others that got away does not mean that all Muslims are deviant or extremists. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

Let the historians and the Ph.D. students work out their doctrines. I’m not interested in theories per se. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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

If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless. — Lee Kuan Yew

I’m not guided by what Human Rights Watch says. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

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. — Lee Kuan Yew

The difficult part was getting the people to change their habits so that they behaved more like first world citizens, not like third world citizens spitting and littering all over the place. — Lee Kuan Yew

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