Arbora Singapore Quotes

I keep seeing this ad on TV. It talks about teachers. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for changing my life. They all look happy. Have they always been this happy? Did they have a perfect childhood? A perfect school life? I was happy once. But I was young. The older you get, the more you remember. The younger you are, the more you forget. ~ Haresh Sharma

In Singapore, there may be 50 old-money families, but you wouldn't know them to look at them. ~ Kevin Kwan

Lee Kuan Yew ruled Singapore from 1959 until 1990, making him, we believe, the longest serving prime minister anywhere. His party, the People's Action Party (PAP), dominated elections and that dominance was reinforced by the allocation of public housing, upon which most people in Singapore rely. Neighborhoods that fail to deliver PAP votes come election time found the provision and maintenance of housing cut off.18 In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe went one step further. In an operation called Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out the Rubbish), he used bulldozers to demolish the houses and markets in neighborhoods that failed to support him in the 2005 election. ~ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

In Singapore, as befits that no-nonsense city state, they followed this line of thinking even further, and pegged ministerial salaries to the national GDP. When the Singaporean economy grows, ministers get a raise, as if that is what their job is all about. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

If you go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Buenos Aires or Islamabad or Johannesburg or Tampa or Istanbul or Kyoto, you'll find that the people differ wildly in the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, in their religious rituals, and so on, but they all expect the food to be under lock and key. It's all owned, and if you want some, you'll have to buy it. ~ Daniel Quinn

You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again and your asset values will disappear, your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

We were always eating expired things. Milk, bread, biscuits, cake. We forgot about them as they sat around the house and just as they had gone bad, we put them in our mouths. Chocolates I brought back with me from Australia, cheeses in last year's Christmas hamper, juice from the last time someone decided to go grocery shopping. We didn't always realize they tasted funny – not everything curdles and a two-month-old orange can be just as sweet. When we did, it was usually too late. Sometimes it wasn't. We finished what we had started anyway. ~ Cheryl Julia Lee

Higher salaries were not the only way the government strove to staunch the bleeding. In the past, before admin salaries were raised, government leaders intervened when officers they considered key were targeted. Dr Goh Keng Swee, then still in the Cabinet, once told me: "We only let you take those we were prepared to release." In one celebrated case, in the early 1960s, he personally stepped in to stop one important hire. The paper's British management had recruited Herman Hochstadt, a rising young officer who later became permanent secretary. The morning he was to start work, even before he could settle in his chair at Times House, he found that Dr Goh had demanded his return to the civil service. ~ Cheong Yip Seng

What I love most about Jerusalem is that it's not about money." "Pardon?" "New York here is a city about money. L.A.'s about money. Las Vegas is about money. Dallas the same. Tokyo and London, Milan, Zurich, Singapore, the whole reason for them is money. Tel Aviv's about money. But Jerusalem, it's not about money." "He is absolutely right," put in Abu. "Jerusalem is about ... something else. ~ Tom Robbins

Singapore and China did not have diplomatic relations at that time [1976]. Communism is banned in Singapore, and nobody could visit China without official approval. The Singapore government had prohibited travel there for fear that Singaporeans would be subverted and converted to the communist cause. . .The travel ban was lifted after Lee Kuan Yew's visit. He realised that nobody could experience life there and be seduced by their system. Indeed, they would better appreciate what Singapore offered. ~ Cheong Yip Seng

Retrenchment is good for singapore. If there is no retrenchments, then I worry. ~ Goh Chok Tong

Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards. This is your life and mine. I've spent a whole lifetime building this and as long as I'm in charge, nobody is going to knock it down. ~ Mr. Lee

I've never been invited to do an exhibition or do a talk in England, except once, about 10 years ago. I've given talks all across Canada, many in the United States, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan - but not England. ~ Brian Wildsmith

Countries that are agricultural can, at a low standard of living, sustain themselves. You can be self-sufficient; the money economy is a relatively insignificant part of the total economy. Singapore never was an agricultural country. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Programmes like the BES are what make the difference between a good university & one that is truly outstanding. I believe this programme will be invaluable for the future sustainability of Singapore and the region; perhaps even the world, if others follow our lead. ~ Geh Min

Businesses are moving online to look for new customer segments. In today's online brand race, a digital marketing agency in Singapore can assist your brand rise from nothing to everything. ~ Intrapress

The sea was no stranger to the rock on the beach. The sea came often to the rock, rushing up wetly against its warm grey, and always as it swept away it took an infinitesimal part of the rock with it. The rock had known the waves for a long time, and learned it was in its nature to erode. ~ Chew Chia Shao Wei

It is amazing that you now have a bus company in Ballymena producing world class buses for Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Las Vegas. ~ Martin McGuinness

Memories are nice, but dreams are better. ~ John Anthony Miller

Great. Darcy is the ruler of our school. Prety soon, Julius is going to be like Singapore - you'll get a $500 fine for chewing gum or making out in the hallways. ~ Flynn Meaney

Throughout these pages, my brush weeps in sorrow for what happened in Tiananmen Square.

Not for the first time, a government was turning the guns on its people. Has the world learned nothing from history? ~ Morgan Chua

The human being is an unequal creature. That is a fact. And we start off with the proposition. All the great religions, all the great movements, all the great political ideology, say let us make the human being as equal as possible. In fact, he is not equal, never will be. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Perhaps she moves too slowly now, or the world moves too fast for her. She enters the lift, a giant wheel turns and steel cables lower the mechanized box. The lift drops down a black shaft, which exists at the heart of each HDB block. The country may be described, not as a place covered with blocks of public housing, but a topography where black vertical shafts, some forty storeys tall, rise out of the ground like trees. ~ Justin Ker

I pointed to an article with bold headlines reporting that the police had refused to allow the PAP to hold a rally at Empress Place, and then to the last paragraph where in small type it added the meeting would take place where we were now. I compared this with a prominent report about an SPA rally. This was flagrant bias. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

I was also troubled by the apparent over-confidence of a generation that has only known stability, growth and prosperity. I thought our people should understand how vulnerable Singapore was and is, the dangers that beset us, and how we nearly did not make it. Most of all, I hope that they will know that honest and effective government, public order and personal security, economic and social progress did not come about as the natural course of events. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

New Singapore will be one of the world's finest, most liveable cities. Arts, theatres, museums, music and sports will flourish. Singapore will be a lively and exciting place.. Our city will not only have depth, but also the richness of diversity. But above all, Singapore will a home for Singaporeans. ~ Goh Chok Tong

The Singapore Media Festival brings together the most important Film and TV events in Singapore under one umbrella. With media convergence, I foresee that the SMF will encompass even more content formats in future, and will keep Singapore on the cutting-edge of media development. I am confident the SMF will be a signature media event for Singapore and the world for many years to come. ~ Calvin Cheng

Once
There was a quiet island,
With a name.
You must believe me
When I say that sunlight,
Impure but beautiful,
Broke upon the bay, silvered
The unrepentant, burning moon. ~ Edwin Thumboo

I am writing this on a computer that I can't imagine living without. This is an alarming thought, the extent to which I have organised my life around a metal box full of wires (and, via the Internet, to many other metal boxes full of wires). Someone told me most of the Internet is stored in a warehouse somewhere in North Carolina. I don't know enough about technology to gauge if this is true, but it made me realise how little I actually understand about the world I inhabit. The world of Dr Wong's childhood was significantly smaller than mine, but he understood every square inch of it. ~ Jeremy Tiang

The sensation of the ocean bearing my weight was the most carefree lightness I'd ever experienced. When we were halfway across the strait, the sound of an engine approached from a distance - it was probably the police coast guard. We quickly ducked under the surface of the water, exposing only the tips of our trunks so we could breathe. ~ Xi Ni Er

Malaysia-Singapore bilateral relations can blossom beautifully if cultivated and nurtured like an orchid plant. ~ Najib Razak

The 21st century will be the Asian century. This also means that Asians will be expected to provide greater leadership to solve global challenges, including environmental challenges. Hence, this multi-disciplinary programme from NUS could not be more timely. It meets a pressing need to educate, train and empower leading players in the public, private and civil society sectors in Singapore, Asia and the world. ~ Kishore Mahbubani

I did not know I was to spend the rest of my life getting Singapore not just to work but to prosper and flourish. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

with you, the sense i have lost my place in a book
or simply lost - misplaced the memory
which isn't in the last place where I looked.
a thought that the clouds don't move - that it is we
who thunder past - there it is! an old vacation,
a train ride - sense of immobility.
as sky and forest scroll past in relation,
we are not moved, pretend to love the view,
resort at length to scripted conversation
by a poet-turned-screenwriter who
didn't want this job, career gone grossly wrong
and now drafts action film scripts wholly two-
dimensional unless you choose to don
the 3d glasses that do not stay on - ~ Joshua Ip