23rd March 2015 is a day of mixed feelings…
It is the day I learnt that our founding father of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, died peacefully after his condition worsened due to an infection…
I normally do not express my feelings through this website, but I do hope international users who accidentally/intentionally land on this website be aware of this great thinker and visionary of this era.
Many foreigners may only know him as the first Prime Minister of Singapore, who introduced lots of unpopular policies, and ruled Singapore with an “iron fist”.
But what most people do not understand is that these controversial policies and “autocratic” style of ruling get Singapore to where it is today.
I, for one, am very grateful that our esteem founding father did not adopt a populist ruling approach. I am not an expert on how to run a country, but seeing how Singapore transformed herself from a fishing village into an economic powerhouse, is truly an amazing and remarkable feat. Although everyone plays a part in the growth of our nation, I feel that it was thanks to the vision of Mr Lee that we get to enjoy such a beautiful and safe country.
I am very thankful that Mr Lee had the foresight in creating a bilingual society, which enables me to indulge myself in Chinese and English texts, culture, and ultimately the ability to aggregate motivational content of both languages for everyone to enjoy.
One of his memorable quote exemplify just how much he sacrifice for Singapore:
‘I have no regrets. I have spent my life, so much of it, building up this country. There’s nothing more that I need to do. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.’ – LKY
His sacrifice and absolute devotion to the betterment of every Singaporean will not be forgotten. At the very least, not by me. He is truly the man in the arena.
Thank you Mr Lee Kuan Yew for your selfless contributions.
May you rest in peace.
Tribute written by a teary-eyed, true blue Singaporean
See other Tributes:
The Straits Times – Remembering Lee Kuan Yew
BBC News – Obituary: Lee Kuan Yew
Channel NewsAsia – Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew dies aged 91
Channel NewsAsia – PM Lee: I am grieved beyond words at the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew
Month: March 2015
Mahatma Gandhi – Inspirational Quotes, Film, and Speech
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi a.k.a. Mahatma Gandhi a.k.a. Bapu, was the preeminent leader of Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma – applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa – is now used worldwide. He is also called Bapu (endearment for “father”) in India.
An epic biographical film – Gandhi (1982) – depicts the life of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s non-violent, non-cooperative independence movement against the United Kingdom’s rule of the country during the 20th century.
The film covers Gandhi‘s life as a lawyer from a defining moment in 1893, as he is thrown off a South African train for being in a whites-only compartment, subsequently became the famed leader of India through his philosophy of non-violent protest against the British rule. The film concludes with his assassination and funeral in 1948. Although a practising Hindu, Gandhi‘s embracing of other faiths, particularly Christianity and Islam, is also depicted.
Below are some inspirational & motivational quotes from Gandhi (1982)
- No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try to find one’s way to the heart of the man…
- Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth
- When you are fighting in a just cause, people seem to pop up, like you, right out of the pavement. Even when it’s dangerous.
- Doesn’t the New Testament say: “If your enemy strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the left.”
- I suspect he (God) meant you must show courage, be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you won’t strike back, nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that, it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase.
- You’ll find there’s room for us all.
- Love thy neighbor as thyself
- We are all such sinners; we should leave punishment to God.
- Think of what you can do by living that you cannot do by dying.
- The only devils that are in this world are those that are running around in our own hearts. And that is where all our battles ought to be fought.
- An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
- When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always.
Bonus motivational quote by Mahatma Gandhi
On October 1931, Mahatma Gandhi delivered a spiritual message to a huge crowd in London. The speech is centered on the mysterious power/being that rules everything in the universe, and asked listeners to have faith in this supreme entity that governs us all.
Inspirational speech by Mahatma Gandhi
Kingsley Hall, 1931
Transcript:
There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything; I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules, or why and how He rules, and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules.
In my tour last year in Mysore, I met many poor villagers and I found upon inquiry that they did not know who ruled Mysore. They simply said some God ruled it. If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler, I, who am infinitely lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler, need not be surprised if I do not realize the presence of God – the King of Kings.
Nevertheless, I do feel, as the poor villagers felt about Mysore, that there is orderliness in the universe. There is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living being and thanks to the marvellous researches of Sir J. C. Bose, it can now be proved that even matter is life. That law then which governs all life is God. Law and the law-giver are one. I may not deny the law, or the law-giver, because I know so little about it or Him.
Just as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing even so my denial of God and His law will not liberate me from its operation, whereas humble and mute acceptance of divine authority makes life’s journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier. I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves, and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is. And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, and light. He is love. He is the supreme Good. But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He ever does. God, to be God, must rule the heart and transform it. He must express himself in every smallest act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite realization, more real than the five senses can ever produce.
Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject this evidence is to deny oneself. This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He, who would, in his own person, test the fact of God’s presence, can do so by a living faith, and since faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence, the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of truth and love. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to truth and love. I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason. Faith transcends reason. All that I can advise is not to attempt the impossible.