Top 90 Lee Kuan Yew Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “If you want to reach your goals and dreams, you cannot do it without discipline.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

Featured in: Goal Quotes, Discipline Quotes, Quotes About Dreams

2. “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

3. “Having an education is one thing, being educated is another.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

4. “A leader without the vision, to strive to improve things, is no good. Then you will just stay put, you won’t progress.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

Featured in: Vision Quotes, Progress Quotes

5. “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

6. “As you solve one set of problems, new ones appear. That is part of the nature of life.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

7. “We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

8. “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

9. “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

10. “What I fear is complacency. When things always become better, people tend to want more for less work.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

11. “If you can’t force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

12. “What is of consequence is I did my best.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

13. “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

14. “I always tried to be correct, not politically correct.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

15. “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

16. “I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think it’s a grave mistake.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

17. “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

18. “I do not yet know of a man who became a leader as a result of having undergone a leadership course.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

19. “If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you’re putting yourself out of business.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

20. “I’m not saying that everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honourable purpose.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

21. “Rest on laurels? I wish I could do that. No, you rest when you’re dead.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

22. “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

23. “At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

24. “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

25. “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

26. “Every person, genius or moron, has a right to reproduce himself.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

27. “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

28. “The human being is an unequal creature. That is a fact. And we start off with the proposition. All the great religions, all the great movements, all the great political ideology, say let us make the human being as equal as possible. In fact, he is not equal, never will be.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

29. “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

30. “You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

31. “You marry a non-graduate, then you are going to worry if your son or daughter is going to make it to the university.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

32. “A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

33. “Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

34. “No, your job as a leader is to inspire and to galvanize, not to share your distraught thoughts. You make your people dispirited.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

35. “There is a glorious rainbow that beckons those with the spirit of adventure. And there are rich findings at the end of that rainbow. To the young and the not too old, I say look at the horizon, find that rainbow, go ride it. Not all will be rich; quite a few will find a vein of gold; but all who pursue that rainbow will have a joyous and exhilarating ride and some profit.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

36. “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

37. “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

38. “I have decided that we shall make and build and never give way.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

39. “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

40. “If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

41. “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

42. “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

43. “Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

44. “Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don’t understand this.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

45. “There are some flaws in the assumptions made for democracy. It is assumed that all men and women are equal or should be equal. Hence, one-man-one-vote. But is equality realistic? If it is not, to insist on equality must lead to regression.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

46. “Demography, not democracy, will be the most critical factor for security and growth in the 21st century.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

47. “After trying out a number of ways to reduce inequalities and failing, I was gradually forced to conclude that the decisive factors were the people, their natural abilities, education and training. Knowledge and the possession of technology were vital for the creation of wealth.”

— Lee Kuan Yew

48. “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

49. “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

50. “If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it.”

— Lee Kuan Yew