Top 55 Lee Hsien Loong Quotes

I think we are paying a lot of attention to China one way or the other. They are a big factor in the world. They are successful; they are growing. They want to grow their influence, and all the countries in Asia want to be their friend and want to benefit from China’s development and success.

We do have to watch to see how the foreign workers and immigrants are fitting in with our community, and you have to watch them mix so that you don’t overbalance the numbers or the tone of our society.

We are looking for ways where you can have a sandbox, where you have a restricted environment within which people can try new things, and I can try new rules. And depending on what works, then I open up the sandbox, and it becomes the new rule for the whole system.

The U.S. is not a claimant state in the South China Sea or in the China-Japan dispute over the Senkaku Islands. But, of course, the 7th Fleet has been a presence in the region since the Second World War, and it is the most powerful fleet in the region.

It’s never easy to be a small country next to a big neighbor.

Singapore needs to be able to continue to add value to China in order for the relationship to be worthwhile for both sides.

You need people who have their own views, whose views you respect, whom you can have a productive disagreement with, and work out ideas which you might not have come up with, or who improve on ideas you had.

You will always have politics being pushed towards multiracial politics because you have to field a team.

The Chinese go around with lollipops in their pockets. They have aid. They have friendship deals. They build you a Prime Minister’s office or President’s office or Parliament House or Foreign Ministry. For them, trade is an extension of their foreign policy.

My colleagues went on the Internet, went on Facebook, and they found it helpful, and they persuaded me that I should try, so I did. It’s quite fun provided you keep it in balance and… from time to time slip in a serious message.

If you make a defamatory allegation that the Prime Minister is guilty of criminal misappropriation of pension funds of Singaporeans, that’s a very serious matter.

China’s influence is growing; it is natural that they want to integrate more, do more business with countries around them, and the Belt and Road is a constructive way in which they can do so.

In every American election, crazy things are said. Positions are taken which the winners try very hard to forget afterwards.

We are not in a situation where the minorities are demanding something and the majorities are pushing back saying ‘We don’t want it.’

The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom.

If you go overseas and meet people, you can detect a Singaporean from across the street – the way he dresses, slightly; the way he talks; the way he acts. There is a persona which is recognizable and which we are proud of.

Every time you make a rule, somebody will think of a way to operate around the rule.

Singapore admires America’s dynamism, vibrancy, and capacity for self-renewal. These qualities attract the best and brightest from around the world.

Singaporeans generally feel more secure these days. One of our tasks is to remind them that this, a result of a continuing act of will and an appropriate sense of insecurity, is very helpful.

You have to understand that Singapore is quite different from Mauritius.

We are open to the world; the world is at our doorstep. It washes in, not just through the windows, but we are immersed in it completely – through the Internet, through the media, through people traveling, coming here, as well as Singaporeans going abroad.

It has to be good to live in Singapore because otherwise, nobody will stand for it.

I do not owe hundreds of millions of potential foreign workers from around the world an obligation. I owe Singaporeans a responsibility.

The key thing in Northeast Asia is North Korea. They are unpredictable; they are developing their nuclear capabilities and their missiles.

You have to have an idea of what you need to do, what needs to be fixed, what can be improved, what we should now imagine together which we didn’t previously imagine. And having thought of it, decide to go it. And that’s the government’s role.

To represent the nation, you must have multiracial representation.

No government prospers by saying, ‘I don’t need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.’

China has been developing, growing in economic strength and its influence in the region. That will continue.

If we did not have a sense of who we were, how we got here, why we want to achieve something – which, on the face of it, on the logic of it, is probably not worth trying – and prove that logic wrong, then you wouldn’t succeed; then you would just evaporate.

We stand stoutly against all forms of terrorism, and cross-border terror is a particular problem that India has. Singapore has a problem with cross-border terror, too, because we are a very small country, and it is quite possible for an attack to be mounted on Singapore from beyond our shores.

Over half a century working together on multiple issues, Singaporeans and Americans have made many enduring and close personal friendships.

I think if you look at the Singapore projects, we wanted to do industrial parks. They have taken very long to clear the issues of land, and these become politicised, and you can’t settle it, and eventually the project languishes and nothing happens.

One of the reasons America is welcome in Asia is because with America… there is a certain idealism and a certain bigness of soul. You want the region to prosper; you want countries to do well, and you are prepared to help them.

I would not say that the North Koreans will do anything that the Chinese want them to do.

You have an administration which understands America’s international responsibilities and interests, but you have a population which is anxious, tired, and doesn’t want to bear any burden and pay any price. And that’s very difficult for whoever becomes president.

Everybody has his place; everybody is equal. Treated equally, equal standing, equal rights and status.

You have to have a sense of what it looks like, not from the point of view of the policymaker but from the point of view of those who are at the receiving end of your policies.

At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It’s in the nature of a capitalist system.

You look at the Americans. They don’t lack fervour in moral causes. They promote democracy, freedom of speech, women’s rights, gay rights, sometimes even transgender rights. But you don’t see them applying that universally across the world with all their allies.

The Chinese are quite clear what their interests are and very consistent on pushing their interests.

China is developing very quickly. At every stage, its needs are different.

There is always competition for influence, but there are also opportunities for cooperation.

There will always be frictions when you have a foreign worker population or immigrant population in the country, and we have to manage that, and that requires good behaviour and adjustment both on the part of the foreign workers and the immigrants as well as on the part of the Singaporeans.

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?

Countries in Asia – Singapore, certainly, but many other countries too – are good friends to both China and America, and we would like to be good friends with both.

We have to work towards free trade because otherwise we will miss out on many opportunities for cooperation, and relations amongst countries will become much more difficult.

We are happy to see China prospering; we are happy to see China playing a constructive and positive role in the region.

America excels not just through sheer individual talent but by working together with others.

The tactics we were able to use in the 1960s, 1970s – let’s have a campaign, mobilize everybody and, therefore, social pressure – stop littering, or stop spitting, or be courteous to one another: I am not sure that kind of approach will work anymore.

You need to have good people: honourable, capable, committed in politics, standing in public office. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s the ideal we have to aim for.

What we can do in Singapore may not be doable elsewhere. Some things you know you need: you want efficient government, you want clean government, you want to do away with corruption, you must educate your people. You want to get housing and so on. All these are not such secrets, not so special to Singapore.

If we have no foreign workers, our economy suffers; our own lives suffer.

When people say they don’t want a nanny state, they are, in fact, in a conflicted state of mind. On the one hand, they want to do whatever they want and not be stopped. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, they want to be rescued.