“I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind - an inability to chart a course whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. If you can't force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.”
SM Lee Kuan Yew, Success Stories, 2002
2000s
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Lee Kuan Yew 72
First Prime Minister of Singapore 1923–2015Related quotes
“You can’t apologize your way into people’s hearts … You have to go full force.”
"Friendly, and Just a Bit Creepy: St. Vincent Defies Categories" in The New York Times (7 May 2009) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/arts/music/07vince.html?_r=1&ref=arts&pagewanted=all
Context: I think anyone who is creative or self-aware in any way, there’s like a humility to it, or I should say a humiliation to it. But there’s also a self-delusion — the provisional ego, as my uncle would call it. The self-delusion is the thing that makes you go, oh you know what, all the music that I’ve ever loved in the world, I want to be a part of that — hey, listen to what I have to say, it’s really important, it’s going to matter.”
You can’t apologize your way into people’s hearts... You have to go full force.
Don't Fade On Me, written with Mike Campbell
Lyrics, Wildflowers (1994)
As quoted in Omar the Great : The Second Caliph Of Islam (1962) by Muhammad Shibli Numani, Vol. 2, p. 33
Context: Remember, I have not appointed you as commanders and tyrants over the people. I have sent you as leaders instead, so that the people may follow your example. Give the Muslims their rights and do not beat them lest they become abused. Do not praise them unduly, lest they fall into the error of conceit. Do not keep your doors shut in their faces, lest the more powerful of them eat up the weaker ones. And do not behave as if you were superior to them, for that is tyranny over them.
“You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too”
Reported in The Leadership of Speaker Sam Rayburn, Collected Tributes of His Congressional Colleagues (1961), p. 34; House Doc. 87–247.
“You ask which form of government is the best? Whichever teaches us to govern ourselves.”
Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige, die uns lehrt, uns selbst zu regieren.
Maxim 353, trans. Stopp
Variant translation by Saunders: Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. (225)
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
