Photo: AFP
The date is Sept. 16 and Singapore’s former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, also known as the founding father of this country, celebrates his 90th birthday today.
Here, we celebrate Lee Kuan Yew’s long and illustrious career as the leader of a nation with 10 of his most lucid and thus memorable, sayings.
1965: “I am not here to play somebody else’s game. I have a few million people’s lives to account for. Singapore will survive.”
On J. B. Jeyaretnam, 1981: “I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy.”
1982: “I make no apologies that PAP is the Government. And the Government is the PAP.”
1987: “I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters — who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.”
1997: “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.”
2006: “Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don’t understand this.”
2007: We are pragmatists. We don’t stick to any ideology. Does it work? Let’s try it and if it does work, fine, let’s continue it. If it doesn’t work, toss it out, try another one. We are not enamoured with any ideology.
Eulogy on his late wife, 2010: “We knew that we could not stay starry-eyed lovers all our lives and that life was an ever ongoing challenge, with new problems to resolve and to manage.
2011: “Please don’t waste time. It’s more important and more satisfying than your PhD. But good luck to you, I hope you get your PhD and your boyfriend.” Watch the full video.
2013: “If you have the money (and) you can pay for what you demand, you will get it. If you haven’t got the money, you might have all the oil next door, (but) you won’t get it. That’s life.”
