A Quote by Lee Kuan Yew
At the end of the day, is Singapore society better or worse off? That's the test.
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War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.
For Singapore, its test for its own democracy must be whether it fit and serve the interests of its people and conditions, and not serve some abstract ideal that the Western media thought it ought to conform to. If in 10 years, Philippines, Taiwan and Korea were better societies because they adopted the US model, Singapore would hurry to catch.
If you don't have that Singapore core, you can top up the numbers, but you are no longer Singapore. It doesn't feel Singapore - it isn't Singapore - and we can issue everybody red passports, but where is the continuity?
In other words, the better they did on the IQ test, the worse they did on the practical test and the better they did on the practical tests, the worse they did on the IQ test.
As long as our people, youth, businesses and individuals engage the issues of the day civilly in our democracy, and treat their fellow Singaporeans and foreigners within our midst with dignity and empathy, and endeavor for a more caring society, the best years of Singapore, a Singapore for all, are ahead of us.
We play a sport. It's a game. At the end of the day, that's all it is, is a game. It doesn't make you any better or any worse than anybody else. So by winning a game, you're no better. By losing a game, you're no worse. I think by keeping that mentality, it really keeps things in perspective for me to treat everybody the same.
We were constantly traveling between Malaysia and Singapore, which is connected by a bridge at the southernmost end of Malaysia. In fact, when I was a child, I had to go between countries twice a day to go to school, because I was living in Malaysia at the time but attending primary school in Singapore.
The Singapore judicial system's shameful recourse to using torture - in the form of caning - to punish crimes that should be misdemeanors is indicative of a blatant disregard for international human rights standards, one of the defendants said that sentencing day was the darkest day of his life, but in reality every day that Singapore keeps caning on its books is a dark day for the country's international reputation.
Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured
At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.
The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win - you pass the test.
How good the design is doesn't matter near as much as whether the design is getting better or worse. If it is getting better, day by day, I can live with it forever. If it is getting worse, I will die.
Choosing elements for your wedding day should be fun, but these choices won't make any difference in the stuff that matters. For better or worse, you'll end that day married to your partner, and that's the truly exciting part.
My main mission when I became Prime Minister, was to keep Singapore going and Singapore has been kept going. So, I'm happy with what I've done for Singapore.
I used to play in the subway. If everyone tossed in a quarter, at the end of the day it would add up. It shows you aren't invisible. And it's better than being ignored, or kicked in the head, or worse.
Here's the positive scenario: that something has been going wrong in American society. You see it in wage growth, opioid abuse, many other social indicators, as you know. Sometimes it's better to get the bad reaction to that over with quickly while your civil society still is strong and you can react and respond and protest, and you know, four or eight years from now, make another decision, and maybe it's better to have that happen in 2017 than 20 years later when some of our problems are worse and our national mood is worse.
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