26 Quotes by Singaporean authors

Singaporean Flag

Singaporean sayings carry the brisk pace of an island that queues, plans, and still jokes in the heat. They mix kopitiam bluntness with kampung care, a practical poetry shaped by rain, regulations, and relentless appetite. Dry wit, small-island swagger, and the hush of courtesy meet kiasu and kiasi, teased then tamed. Voices slip between English and dialects, a little lah for warmth, a little lor for shrug. Food courts, void decks, and the MRT become stages for ambition, compromise, and the quiet, stubborn hope of a red dot.

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"We hope that through these trade arrangements, through collaboration in training, in manpower development, and what have you, ASEAN in, say, ten years' time, will be a very different ASEAN"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"Well, you have a defence attache here, that's a step forward. Your Defence Minister has been here, our defence people have exchanges with you. So friendly relations at the military level are already in existence"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"We are each other's seventh largest trading partner, we are the fifth largest investor there and likewise, we have a lot of exchanges between political leaders, businessmen, tourists and school children too"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"We have to reflect on the fundamentals of learning. What do we mean by learning outcomes or educational outcomes? It is not about how quickly you can access knowledge. It's about how well you think"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"You are slowly developing some multinationals of your own. We certainly hope that some of them will look in this direction when they look for opportunities because the progress of Southeast Asia is important to China, just as China's progress is important to us"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"My own perception is that there are two tiers of countries, one, the original ASEAN, and then the new members. The new members are in various stages of development"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"Well, the important message that we've always carried to China is that we look forward to your progress and prosperity, we look forward to you playing a role in the progress and prosperity of this region and we look forward to stability in your relations with others"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"Well, as you've said, we cannot expect the people of China not to want to progress, so if you have an opportunity to progress, to develop your economy to a world class economy, it's an aspiration that is natural and that, I welcome"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"In the United Nations, when China entered, we voted on the same position, and since then we have maintained the same position, that position has not changed"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"You are a large country, you have many resources, and you have people who are highly capable"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"The question of peace, progress and prosperity, it's a motherhood statement, all of us like it"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"China also has moved away from its original status of purely producing basic, what you call, consumer commodities, and Chinese companies are moving beyond China to various parts of the world"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"Apprehension is natural, but it must not be concluded that it is a threat. Certainly not"

Sellapan Ramanathan, Statesman

"You know, we are treading water today, we're obsessed with the short term. But if that's all we do, we'll eventually be drinking seawater"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"You know being small helps, because your basis for doing well in the world is to be relevant to the rest of the world. You never look inward and you never get too complacent"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"We can keep learning through life, and the technologies now make it possible for us not just to learn, but to stay active and to keep contributing"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"Our ambition in tech, and in public policy around tech, has to start with imagining the future we want to see, and especially the public good that we want to see"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"We have to learn to live with this. It is unlikely that these uncertainties will be resolved or eliminated soon. But uncertainty does not mean a lack of opportunity!"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"For a multicultural society to remain cohesive in today's world, requires more than the coexistence of different races, religions and cultures"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"Our central task has to be to build resilience and optimism at this time of radical uncertainty, and to address and rollback these undercurrents"

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"The big nest was in Afghanistan, that's not quite cleared, then there are nests in the Philippines, there are nests in Indonesia, the Malaysians are clearing up their nests"

Lee Kuan Yew, Statesman

Lee Kuan Yew

"I knew that my niece was working nearby with some bank, so my wife rang up the mother and the mother called back to say that she's just called up to say she was alright"

Lee Kuan Yew, Statesman

Lee Kuan Yew

"I was a product of the times, the war, the occupation, the reoccupation, my 4 years in Britain, admiring but at the same time questioning whether they are able to do a better job than we can"

Lee Kuan Yew, Statesman

Lee Kuan Yew

"Well, if done a lot of hard work to try and get people to act rationally, the fact that we've had 15 deviant Muslims, plus 5 or 8 others that got away does not mean that all Muslims are deviant or extremists"

Lee Kuan Yew, Statesman

Lee Kuan Yew

"Of-course we did, but we didn't reply because we knew once this leaks, the others will scatter, so in the few days we moved quickly before the press got hold of it. The press did get hold of it a few days later, we nabbed, we were able to get 15, the others got away"

Lee Kuan Yew, Statesman

Lee Kuan Yew

"If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you're putting yourself out of business"

Lee Kuan Yew, Statesman

Lee Kuan Yew

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