Lee Kuan Yew Quotes

Fragmentation is a big part of the problem. You have a city where trash is taken away from the curb every week, and you don't see it any more, and you don't have any sense of where water comes from. So there's no sense of responsibility and accountability and there's also no sense of empowerment for our actions.

Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.

If there was a way to discourage trash constitutionally, I would sure as heck take a hard look at it. I don't think there is. So I don't think there's a choice here.

There aren't many things that are universally cool, and it's cool not to litter. I'd never do it.

The process of wanting to clean India is not an overnight job. At the same time, if we can inspire all citizens, it would happen much more quickly.

I am often asked what can people do to become a good global citizen? I reply that it begins in your own community.

We need to become good citizens in the global village, instead of competing. What are we competing for - to drive more cars, eat more steaks? That will destroy the world.

Some trash is recycled, some is thrown away, some ends up where it shouldn't end up.

I think if we're going to have to landfill trash, and I think we basically have to, we might as well get the upside for it and dedicate that upside to improving the environment in so many different ways.

What we are doing in educating students is trying to prepare them to live more fulfilling lives for the decades after they graduate. And trying to provide a better, richer, fairer, more decent society for the generations after.

In petrol stations on the motorways where people have left the place looking messy, I clear up each lavatory I happen to have occupied. When people drop paper on the ground, and everything like that, I pick it up, put it in the lavatory, and make that room look nice.

As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level.

As a society, we cannot afford to waste our most valuable resources—our citizens.

The only thing to do is say, "If you generate it in your country, you take care of it.

By educating the young generation along the right lines, the People's State will have to see to it that a generation of mankind is formed which will be adequate to this supreme combat that will decide the destinies of the world.

Waste of resources must ultimately result in National decay. This subject therefore ought to be dealt with in a sympathetic, inquiring spirit, being entirely non-political and non-sectarian.

We cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government, for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant.

… the world economy will only develop if it allows a dignified way of life for all human beings, from the eldest to the unborn child, not just for citizens of the G20 member states but for every inhabitant of the earth, even those in extreme social situations or in the remotest places.

In theory, recycling poop is the perfect solution to the one truly unavoidable byproduct of human civilization.

If we are going to live in a world ruled by true democracy, then it is essential that every human being receives the kind of education that will best develop his faculties. In addition, each and every one of us must become conscious of the fact that we have an obligation to think for ourselves so that we may function as citizens.

We can moralize all day about how we want ideal citizens to be, but democracy is most secure, and tolerance is maximized, when we design systems to accommodate how people actually are.

I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour.

How do we change as a culture, and how do we each individually take responsibility for the one piece of the solution that we are in charge of, and that is our own behavior?

You can play a role in the shaping of tomorrow's world by asking yourself questions like, 'What kind of world do I want to live in?' and 'What does democracy mean to me?'

We just have to be careful of our actions as world citizens.