The Wit & Wisdom Of Lee Kuan Yew

If you are shopping for a book of quotes as a Valentine's Day gift, you have to be blinded by Cupid's arrows to mistake this for Francis Seow's "Confucius Confounded: The Analects of Lee Kuan Yew". There's no author associated with this Editions Didier Millet (EDM) publication of 600+ quotations. There is a mention though, in the very last page, that Professor Chan Heng Chee had reviewed the book's manuscripts. Seow's compilation has forewards penned by Mahathir and Derek Davies.

The quotes are arranged according to year of citation. There is no indication of context to add panache to the words, be it battling the colonial Brits, debating the Malaysian ultras or brow beating the interfering foreign journalists. Some samples:

On Singaporeans:
"I do not want a suppliant, an inert society where people just say 'yes' to everything I say because that means it is a society with no verve, no vitality." - 1966

On Colonialism:
"The day I can say, 'I am a free man. This is my country', that day I will welcome you as a friendly host would do a guest.  But I will not be a guest in my own country." - 1955

On Democracy:
"If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally.  If you believe that men should be free, then they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication." - 1955

On The PAP:
"My party may have a lot of faults, but there is one fault that it has not got - too much money." -1957

On Immigration:
"For cheap labour, they [the British] allowed unrestricted immigration without any plan, without any policy and without any intention of creating or preserving the self." - 1957

On International Relations:
"No people like to be told by their neighbours, particularly a smaller one, what they should do about their leaders." - 1963

On Prosperity:
"The poor know that you don't get manna falling from heaven, not in Singapore anyway." - 1976

On The Welfare State:
"There is nothing wrong about free health and education, if a society can afford it." - 1970

Above quotes are taken from the EDM book, not Francis Seow's. It is easy to see how the pioneer generation fell deeply in love during the golden years. Too bad the party could not last forever.

This being Valentine's Day, we must have a quote with "love" in it:

"Repression, sir, is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love - it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course, with constant repetition, you get more and more brazen in the attack and in the scope of the attack".
- (Hansard, Oct 4, 1956)

That one is not from the EDM publication, but the Francis Seow book (page 20).