Sometimes, some foreign reporters who come to Singapore to interview me, and they wonder, why we conduct Meet-the-People’s sessions at the void deck. So much for a first world nation.

How does MINDEF intend to reduce uncertainties, enhance understanding, and improve coordination in the region and beyond through defence diplomacy apart from conferences and meetings?

We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.

The pollenless trees were genomed to repel bugs and birds

Only the Lord leads us to walk in the path of light.

Life was complicated, I thought. Not just the living but dealing with the realities and the instinct for order that other people have, that I didn't always grasp.

The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.

The first book of the nation is the dictionary of its language.

I think the French have a romantic cliche that Englishmen have great style, great music, irony and sense of humour. Well, sometimes cliches are true.

In India, there are lots of places that I love, but my favourite is Kashmir.

What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world.

The future of mankind, for the socialist, is simple: pull down the existing order and allow the future to emerge.