Talk:Lee Kuan Yew

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“Do not worry about Singapore. My colleagues and I are sane, rational people even in our moments of anguish. We will weigh all possible consequences before we make any move on the political chessboard...”, 1965, when he responded to concerns of the British government after Singapore's independence. London was concerned that the young government was not able to keep things in control and might take foolish measures.

"At this rate, the one-man, one-vote system could lead to decline and disintegration of my power and that of the PAP!" - after the Opposition won 2 seats

"Every election campaign starts off on a reasonable note, then in order to get the crowds excited, the PAP has to make more brazen, scurrilous, wild accusations." - Accusing the Opposition of "gutter politics" while admitting his party has done the same.

"The party would withdraw services to the two opposition-held seats of Anson and Potong Pasir, and if all of Singapore votes us out, we withdraw all services everywhere and entirely." - On Potong Pasir and Anson electing non-PAP MPs

“I'm prepared to banter with you. I'm prepared to humour you. But if this were an Orwellian society with an Orwellian leader, would we be having this conversation?”, Sunday Mail Magazine 1990 on being a "state out of 1984"

"...because I don't use it so much, therefore it gets disused and there's language loss. Then I have to revive it. It's a terrible problem because learning it at adult life, it hasn't got the same roots in your memory.” May 2005, as Lee released a book, Keeping My Mandarin Alive, relating to his decades of effort to master Mandarin–a language which he said he had to re-learn due to disuse.

"Merit over nepotism. Do not use the word nepotism. I hate it!" -- MM Lee Kuan Yew, in a talk in response to the IMF/World Bank meet in Singapore 2006 (MM Lee's elder son, PM Lee Hsien Loong, is the youngest Brigadier General in Singapore's history, is tipped to be Lee Kuan Yew's successor as Prime Minister from a young age, whose wife is the CEO of the government-owned Temasek Holdings and whose career has also been dogged by a perceived reputation for being arrogant and autocratic.)