A Quote by Vivian Balakrishnan

I was recruited by the former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. And I never forgot his key message to me when he was encouraging me to come in. He said: “You must hold fast to your values. If you have to compromise your values in order to join us, you lose your value to us.”
I love it when the left and when the president say, 'Don't try to impose your values on us, you folks who hold your Bibles in your hand and cling to your guns.' They have values too. Our values are based on religion, based on life. Their values are based on a religion of self.
My father taught me many things. Two of them come to mind right now: Stay true to your values. You can compromise on policies, but not your fundamental values or else you will get lost in the world of politics. The second thing is to listen to whoever you are talking to. People in your street, other politicians, company heads and workers. Learn from them.
Know your career values: Not your parents' values, not your friends', but what you personally value in work. For me, it's things like moving quickly and scrappily, ownership and authority over my work, and flexibility.
The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control. You can lose your health to illness or accident. You can lose your wealth to all manner of unpredictable sources. What are not easily stolen from you without your cooperation are your principles and your values. They are your most important possessions and, if carefully selected and nurtured, will well serve you and your fellow man.
If you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.
By now you know: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, "Take me to your leaders." Even I--unused to your ways though I am--would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them. Instead I will say, "Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths." These are worth it. These are what I have come for.
If you haven’t already clearly defined your values, you may find yourself making choices that conflict with what you want. If, for example, honesty is a big thing for you, but you hang out with liars, there’s a conflict. When your actions conflict with your values, you’ll end up unhappy, frustrated, and despondent. In fact, psychologists tell us that nothing creates more stress than when our actions and behaviors aren’t congruent with our values.
Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show.
There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage... Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?" Yes? "Your belief in the importance of your marriage.
We must now establish the basic principles, the basic values and beliefs which hold us together as Canadians so that beyond our regional loyalties there is a way of life and a system of values which make us proud of the country that has given us such freedom and such immeasurable joy.
It's your life - but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else . . . you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.
One of the great arts in living is to learn the art of accurately appraising values. Everything that we think, that we earn, that we have given to us, that in any way touches our consciousness, has its own value. These values are apt to change with the mood, with time, or because of circumstances. We cannot safely tie to any material value. The values of all material possessions change continually, sometimes over night. Nothing of this nature has any permanent set value. The real values are those that stay by you, give you happiness and enrich you. They are the human values.
I am a socialist and at the same time clear about a certain number of values ... family values, environmental values, the value of succeeding at school, the value of merit and respect for work. To me these are not incompatible with being of the left.
My recruiting key - I looked for PEOPLE first, athletes second. I wanted people with a sound value system as you cannot buy values. You're only as good as your values. I learned early on that you do not put greatness into people...but somehow try to pull it out.
I am thankful the most important key in history was invented. It's not the key to your house, your car, your boat, your safety deposit box, your bike lock or your private community. It's the key to order, sanity, and peace of mind. The key is 'Delete.'
I look to Islamic ethics to find something that can provide the basis for shared values with other traditions, and ultimately universal values. This ties into the point I made in a book, 'The Quest for Meaning', that the only way for values to be universal is if they are shared universal values. My main point is, in this quest for value the aim is not to express your distinctness from others, but about being able to contribute to the discussion of universal value.
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