Friday, May 18, 2012

Remembering Dr Goh Keng Swee

"He who has ambition will do his better in order to satisfy himself. He will stick to his work and see that he is the best man that ever has done that work. Our ambition must be to make ourselves useful to our country, our people and ourselves." - Dr Goh Keng Swee (6 October 1918 – 14 May 2010), the architect of Singapore.

I believe we have a bankruptcy of character. Great minds often come with great character, something unusual and not universally accepted. Singapore's attempt to sterilize character, removing anything remotely like an outlier has resulted in a bland and unimaginative country, incapable of solving the simplest problems. We must learn to embrace the odd ones, the diversity, and have faith in the ingenuity of those we shunned in the past. People should not be made to fit a system. A system should be made to fit the needs of the people.

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