Best quotes from Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been a Senior Minister of Singapore since 2024, having previously served as the third Prime Minister of Singapore from 2004 to 2024. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991, as well as Secretary-General of the People’s Action Party (PAP) since 2004. Born and raised in Singapore during British colonial rule, Lee is the eldest son of Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew.

He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1974 with a bachelor of arts in mathematics with first class honours and a Diploma in Computer Science with distinction (equivalent to a first-class master’s in computer science). He served in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) between 1971 and 1984, and attained the rank Brigadier-General, completing a Master of Public Administration degree at Harvard Kennedy School in 1980. Lee resigned from the SAF in 1984 to enter politics and was elected the MP for Teck Ghee SMC. Since its dissolution in 1991, he has represented the Teck Ghee ward of Ang Mo Kio GRC.

Lee has served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance, Minister for Trade and Industry, and Second Minister for Defence under two Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong before assuming as the office of prime minister in August 2004. In his first two years, his government enacted a five-day work week and extended maternity leave days. His proposal to build two integrated resorts in Singapore to increase tourism revenue led to the development of the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa.

Following the Great Recession of 2008, he oversaw the country’s economic recovery within two years. Further political reforms in 2010 saw increased online activism, as well as the number of Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) in Parliament. In between 2020 and 2021, Lee has oversaw the government response to COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent recession and recovery. In 2022, he also oversaw the government response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is one of only being Southeast Asian country to impose sanctions on Russia.

That the same year, his government de jure and de facto legalised same-sex sexual activity between men by repealing the then already unenforced colonial-era Section 377A. His libel suits against journalists and political opponents have been frequently covered by international news outlets. In 2024, Lee stepped down as leader of the PAP and decided not to seek a fifth full term as Prime Minister in the forthcoming general election; he was succeeded by Lawrence Wong, who subsequently made him a Senior Minister in his first Cabinet.

Some of the best quotes from Lee Hsien Loong are listed below.

1. “America excels not just through sheer individual talent but by working together with others.” – Lee Hsien Loong
2. “America is a great nation, not just because of your power and your wealth, but because of your high ideals, openness, and generosity of spirit.” – Lee Hsien Loong
3. “At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It’s in the nature of a capitalist system.” – Lee Hsien Loong
4. “Basically, if you become president, you must swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and what the Constitution says.” – Lee Hsien Loong
5. “China has been developing, growing in economic strength and its influence in the region. That will continue.” – Lee Hsien Loong
6. “China is a very big and complicated country; it’s not easy to govern. But with courage and unity, China will certainly overcome all difficulties and continue to develop and move forward.” – Lee Hsien Loong
7. “China is developing very quickly. At every stage, its needs are different.” – Lee Hsien Loong
8. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
9. “Chinese companies – telecommunications and technology companies – are some of the best internationally. Taobao, WeChat, Huawei – not only are they large companies, but they’re also very technologically advanced.” – Lee Hsien Loong
10. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
11. “Criticism, any amount, we welcome it. Come, let’s have a discussion – in Parliament, all the better.” – Lee Hsien Loong
12. “Every time you make a rule, somebody will think of a way to operate around the rule.” – Lee Hsien Loong
13. “Everybody has his place; everybody is equal. Treated equally, equal standing, equal rights and status.” – Lee Hsien Loong
14. “For trade to grow, India must make a strategic decision that you want to encourage interdependence and more openness and more trade-based economy.” – Lee Hsien Loong
15. “I do not owe hundreds of millions of potential foreign workers from around the world an obligation. I owe Singaporeans a responsibility.” – Lee Hsien Loong
16. “I don’t have farmers I can convert into factory workers.” – Lee Hsien Loong
17. “I hope that soon after the next election, amongst them they will have decided, settled, and the leader will be ready to take over from me.” – Lee Hsien Loong
18. “I hope to develop our relationship with the Trump administration and with the United States. It’s a very sound relationship that’s based on the basic strategic congruence of views about the world, about the region.” – Lee Hsien Loong
19. “I think every administration has a settling-in process. And there’s always an adjustment between what you can say during a campaign and what you find are the possibilities and the imperatives when you win the election and you enter the Oval Office.” – Lee Hsien Loong
20. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
21. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
22. “I would not say that the North Koreans will do anything that the Chinese want them to do.” – Lee Hsien Loong
23. “If there are tensions between America and China, we will be asked to pick a side. It may not be directly, but you will get the message that, ‘We would like you to be with us, and are you with us? If not, does that mean you’re against us?’ And that’s to put it gently.” – Lee Hsien Loong
24. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
25. “If we have no foreign workers, our economy suffers; our own lives suffer.” – Lee Hsien Loong
26. “If you asked a Singaporean, on the one hand they’ll say, ‘Let us do our own things.’ On the other hand, when an issue comes out, they’ll ask, ‘What is the government doing about it?’” – Lee Hsien Loong
27. “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?” – Lee Hsien Loong
28. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
29. “If you interview world leaders, everybody will say they are for free trade. But what they mean by it and what they do when they say they are pro free trade, you have to watch and see.” – Lee Hsien Loong
30. “If you look at the young people today, they are passionate about all kinds of courses. We have dog-lovers, nature-lovers, those who are pursuing arts; we have quite many who are involved in religious activities through their church.” – Lee Hsien Loong
31. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
32. “In every American election, crazy things are said. Positions are taken which the winners try very hard to forget afterwards.” – Lee Hsien Loong
33. “In our society, which is multiracial and multi-religious, giving offence to another religious or ethnic group, race, language, or religion is always a very serious matter.” – Lee Hsien Loong
34. “It has to be good to live in Singapore because otherwise, nobody will stand for it.” – Lee Hsien Loong
35. “It is never helpful to point at sticking points, but it is always helpful to encourage one’s partners to take a more active and forward-looking approach.” – Lee Hsien Loong
36. “It takes time, but I have a promising team of younger Ministers, and I am quite sure from amongst them, one leader will emerge.” – Lee Hsien Loong
37. “It’s never easy to be a small country next to a big neighbor.” – Lee Hsien Loong
38. “Just as our forefathers saved and invested to build what we, the current generation, are enjoying today, so, too, we must plant trees so that our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, can enjoy the shade.” – Lee Hsien Loong
39. “Maybe Americans feel they don’t need the rest of the world anymore, and they wish it would go away. We don’t have that option.” – Lee Hsien Loong
40. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
41. “My infrastructure must run brilliantly. My whole system must be different from what you can get anywhere else in Asia.” – Lee Hsien Loong
42. “No country can be an island unto itself or world unto itself. Not even the biggest country.” – Lee Hsien Loong
43. “No government prospers by saying, ‘I don’t need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.’” – Lee Hsien Loong
44. “Nowadays, however strong an economy is, not all roads will lead only there. There will be other links between countries in Asia, with America, with Europe, and China will fit into this global network.” – Lee Hsien Loong
45. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
46. “Over half a century working together on multiple issues, Singaporeans and Americans have made many enduring and close personal friendships.” – Lee Hsien Loong
47. “Overall, we think religion is a good thing. I mean, if we were godless society, we would have many other problems; the communists found that out.” – Lee Hsien Loong
48. “Singapore admires America’s dynamism, vibrancy, and capacity for self-renewal. These qualities attract the best and brightest from around the world.” – Lee Hsien Loong
49. “Singapore needs to be able to continue to add value to China in order for the relationship to be worthwhile for both sides.” – Lee Hsien Loong
50. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
51. “The Chinese are quite clear what their interests are and very consistent on pushing their interests.” – Lee Hsien Loong
52. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
53. “The emerging economies, many of them are concerned. They didn’t want the money to slosh in. They are afraid when the money sloshes out, but the tapering has to take place, and we have to be able to manage it.” – Lee Hsien Loong
54. “The key thing in Northeast Asia is North Korea. They are unpredictable; they are developing their nuclear capabilities and their missiles.” – Lee Hsien Loong
55. “The natural result of people preferring one of their own race is that a minority race president will find it hard to get elected, and so it’s something we should do something about and which we can do something about.” – Lee Hsien Loong
56. “The old model for India was to be self-sufficient. It was the ideal India became independent with, that you spin your own thread, make your own clothes.” – Lee Hsien Loong
57. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
58. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
59. “The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom.” – Lee Hsien Loong
60. “There can only be one government, and the president has certain roles and duties, which are to hold the second key on money and on people but not to go and check the government or tell the government what it is supposed to do.” – Lee Hsien Loong
61. “There is always competition for influence, but there are also opportunities for cooperation.” – Lee Hsien Loong
62. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
63. “To represent the nation, you must have multiracial representation.” – Lee Hsien Loong
64. “We are all in favor of the U.S. taking an active and constructive interest in Asia.” – Lee Hsien Loong
65. “We are happy to see China prospering; we are happy to see China playing a constructive and positive role in the region.” – Lee Hsien Loong
66. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
67. “We are not in a situation where the minorities are demanding something and the majorities are pushing back saying ‘We don’t want it.’” – Lee Hsien Loong
68. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
69. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
70. “We have long depended on an America which has got a clear sense of its stakes in the world and how much it depends on the world as well as how much the world and its allies and friends depend on the United States of America, and we hope this will continue.” – Lee Hsien Loong
71. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
72. “We know India is very focussed on black money; it is a very high-focus subject and we have been very careful to make sure the investments into India are legitimate. There is no ’round-tripping’ or hot money or bad money being funnelled through Singapore.” – Lee Hsien Loong
73. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
74. “We want the U.S. to have constructive and stable relations with China. That makes it much easier for us. Then we don’t have to choose sides.” – Lee Hsien Loong
75. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
76. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
77. “Whichever country we are talking to, we are concerned with economic cooperation, how to deepen our mutual dependence, how to find new areas of win-win.” – Lee Hsien Loong
78. “With Singaporeans, you speak English, you’re well-educated, the doors open everywhere.” – Lee Hsien Loong
79. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
80. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
81. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
82. “You have to understand that Singapore is quite different from Mauritius.” – Lee Hsien Loong
83. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
84. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
85. “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.” – Lee Hsien Loong
86. “You will always have politics being pushed towards multiracial politics because you have to field a team.” – Lee Hsien Loong