In the heat of election battle,
people and political parties tend to be sidetracked onto minor and irrelevant
issues…[A]s you know, the habit is to do two things. First insult and denigrate
your opponents. Second, promise the electorate anything and everything – the
sun, the moon and the stars.―――On Politics
[Politics] is a marathon, not a
hundred yards spurt. With every passing speech, with every passing act, the
character, the style, the strength, the weaknesses are etched in the minds of
the public. You can do a PR job…and you suddenly find with a whole host of
ghostwriters and advisers, that the man becomes scholarly, learned, solicitous
in his speech. Catch him at a press conference and a question-and-answer
session, where the ghosts cannot whisper to him, and the man is betrayed.―――On
Politics
From our perilous years in the ‘50s
and ‘60s, a whole generation of Singaporeans was educated in a harsh political
school… Our children have no memories of troubled times… A younger generation
of ministers also missed this experience. Fierce combat has made the older
ministers what they are. For those amongst us, the older ones that were weak or
slow or nervous, they became early casualties. Those present are survivors of a
Darwinian process of natural selection. We have keen survival instincts,
familiar with every trick, underhand or dastardly manoeuvre. We know how to
deal with very scoundrel.―――On
Politics
I do not yet know of a man who
became a leader as a result of having undergone a leadership course.―――On
Leadership
Too much emphasis was laid on the
examination and the paper qualification. We were, therefore, rearing a whole
generation of softies, who are clever; who wore spectacles but who were weak
from want of enough exercise, enough sunshine, and with not enough guts in
them.―――On
Leadership
If you are impulsive and lucky,
you may even pass off as an incisive mind and a decisive commander. If you are
unlucky, then you are a hasty bungler and a fool. Or if you take much time for
a careful weighing of the odds, but the decision nevertheless turned out wrong,
people may well think you are a ditherer…to act decisively.―――On
Leadership
No army, however brave, can win
when its generals are weak.―――On
Leadership