"Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless."
"Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society."
"If you are a troublemaker... it's our job to politically destroy you... Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac."
"You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools."
"We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins."
"If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society... So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem."
"You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... and your asset values will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers."
"I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God. So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God - nor deny that there could be one."
"Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life... I should find solace in her 89 years of a life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief."
"There is an end to everything and I want mine to come as quickly and painlessly as possible, not with me incapacitated, half in coma in bed and with a tube going into my nostrils and down to my stomach."
"Even from my sickbed, even if you are going to lower me to the grave and I feel that something is going wrong, I will get up."
People pay tribute outside the Singapore General Hospital where elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew (AFP/Getty Images)
Barack Obama said after meeting the still-healthy Mr Lee at the White House in October 2009 that “this is one of the legendary figures of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries”.
He had set Singapore on a path that has seen average incomes rise 100 times, with investments across the globe, a widely respected civil service and world-class infrastructure.
But he was criticised for his iron-fisted rule, forcing several opposition politicians into bankruptcy or exile, and once invoked Machiavelli in declaring: “If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.”
Mr Lee’s political career spanned 30 years as premier and 20 years as senior government adviser.
But in his last years, he was a shadow of his old self as his health deteriorated following his beloved wife’s death in October 2010.
He remained revered by many but also became the target of scathing attacks in social media as some Singaporeans began to muster the courage to speak out against him and the political and social model he had bequeathed.
The statement from the Prime Minister's Office that was posted on Facebook
His impact, through his policies and via his son, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is likely to be felt for years to come.
Lee Kuan Yew first became prime minister after Britain granted Singapore self-rule in 1959 prior to its stormy post-colonial union with Malaysia.
Born to a 20-year-old father whom he described as a “rich man’s son, with little to show for himself” and a 16-year-old bride in an arranged marriage, Mr Lee grew up thinking British colonial rulers were invincible.
He had a rude awakening during World War II after Japanese invaders easily overran British forces and took over Singapore in 1942, shattering the myth of European supremacy in Asia.
“The dark ages had descended on us. It was brutal, cruel,” Mr Lee said of the Japanese occupation, calling it “the biggest single political education of my life because, for three and a half years, I saw the meaning of power”.
Mr Lee survived massacres of civilians and at one point worked for Japanese propaganda. After liberation, he left to study law at Cambridge, where he secretly wed his classmate Kwa Geok Choo before returning home in 1950.
Queen Elizabeth II shares a toast with Singapore's then Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in 2006 (AP)
He was shaken by Kwa’s passing after more than 60 years of marriage and admitted that “at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief”.
They had three children, the oldest of whom is Lee Hsien Loong. Daughter Lee Wei Ling became a doctor, and son Lee Hsien Yang became a top corporate figure.
Mr Lee stepped down as prime minister in 1990 and handed power to his deputy Goh Chok Tong, who in turn gave way to the veteran leader’s elder son in 2004.
In 2011, he stepped down as a cabinet adviser after the ruling People’s Action Party suffered its worst performance yet in a general election, its share of the vote falling to a low of 60 percent.
The Prime Minister’s Office said arrangements for the public to pay respects and funeral arrangements will be announced later.
