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

Categorized in : You Looking People New Things

You put out a funny podcast, you talk about bak chor mee. I will say mee siam mai hum.

Lee Hsien Loong

Our people should feel free to express diverse views, pursue unconventional ideas or simply be different.

Lee Hsien Loong

views people ideas

There is no policy too sensitive to question, and no subject so taboo that you cannot even mention it.

Lee Hsien Loong

taboo sensitive policy

People support CPF cuts because there are no protest outside parliament.

Lee Hsien Loong

support cutting people

I thanked the President [George W. Bush] for the steadfastness and resolve with which he's tackling the very complicated problems in the Middle East and Iraq, as well as the Israel-Palestinian issue.... It's critical for us in Southeast Asia that America does that.... because it affects America's standing in Asia and the world, and also the security environment in Asia because extremists, the jihadists, watch carefully what's happening in the Middle East and take heart, or lose heart, depending on what's happening.

Lee Hsien Loong

iraq israel heart

Beijing residents joke that to get a free smoke all they have to do is open their windows!

Lee Hsien Loong

residents beijing window

The idea that I should wish to establish a dynasty makes even less sense. Meritocracy is a fundamental value of our society, and neither I, the PAP, nor the Singapore public would tolerate any such attempt.

Lee Hsien Loong

world

We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins.

Lee Hsien Loong

top-news

Everybody has his place; everybody is equal. Treated equally, equal standing, equal rights and status.

Lee Hsien Loong

status place equal standing

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

you women democracy freedom

There is always competition for influence, but there are also opportunities for cooperation.

Lee Hsien Loong

also always competition influence

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

generation enjoy plant today

It has to be good to live in Singapore because otherwise, nobody will stand for it.

Lee Hsien Loong

live stand nobody good

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

will free you world

At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It's in the nature of a capitalist system.

Lee Hsien Loong

some will financial nature

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

you respect work people

The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom.

Lee Hsien Loong

nobody place wisdom world

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

point more never always

Every time you make a rule, somebody will think of a way to operate around the rule.

Lee Hsien Loong

think you time way

America excels not just through sheer individual talent but by working together with others.

Lee Hsien Loong

just talent working-together together