Good Quotes —— Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States and the World (5)

You must not overlook the importance of discussions with knowledgeable people. I would say that is much more productive than absorbing and running through masses of documents. Because in a short exchange, you can abstract from somebody who has immense knowledge and experience the essence of what he had gained.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

Had we not become streetwise, we would have been clobbered. Like dogs which are closeted in a bungalow behind fences, we would have been run over when exposed to treacherous traffic.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

I do not believe that because a theory sounds good, looks logical on paper, or is presented logically, therefore that is the way it will work out. The final test is life.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

History does not repeat itself in the same way each time, but certain trends and consequences are constants… To understand the present and anticipate the future, one must know enough of the past… One must appreciate not merely what took place, but , more especially, why it took place and in that particular way.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

The lessons their elders have learned at great pain and expense can add to the knowledge of the young and help them to cope with problems and dangers they had not faced before; but such learning, second hand, is never as vivid, as deep, or as durable as that which was personally experienced.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

Only those count and matter who have the strength and courage of their convictions to stick up and stand up for what they believe in, for their people, for their country, regardless of what happens to them.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

Before you have, you must want to have.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

You are a born leader or you are not a leader.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

Good Quotes —— Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States and the World (4)

In a settled and established society, law appears to be a precursor of order… But the hard realities… can be more accurately described if the phrase were inverted to ‘order and law’, for without order, the operation of law is impossible.———Chapter 8: The Future of Democracy

[W]hen a state of increasing disorder and defiance of authority cannot be checked by the rules then existing… drastic rules have to be forged to maintain order so that the law can continue to govern human relations. The alternative is to surrender order for chaos and anarchy.———Chapter 8: The Future of Democracy

Human beings, regrettable though it may be, are inherently vicious and have to be restrained from their viciousness.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

We may have conquered space, but we have not learned to conquer our own primeval instincts and emotions that were necessary for our survival in the Stone Age, not in the space age.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

It is assumed that all men and women are equal and should be equal… But is equality realistic?… One of the facts of life is that no two things are ever equal, either in smallness or in bigness. Living things are never equal. Even in the case of identical twins, one comes out before the other and takes precedence over the other.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

[T]he unwisdom of powerful intellects, including Albert Einstein, [was that] they believed that a powerful brain can devise a better system and bring about more ‘social justice’ than what historical evolution, or economic Darwinism, has been able to work out over the centuries.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks

You can read about [a good idea], but it is irrelevant if you do not relate it to yourself.———Chapter 9: How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks