When people say they don't want a nanny state, they are, in fact, in a conflicted state of mind. On the one hand, they want to do whatever they want and not be stopped. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, they want to be rescued.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the contradiction in people's desires for freedom versus the need for security.
Lee Hsien Loong's quote explores the inherent conflict in human nature regarding freedom and responsibility. While people often advocate for unrestricted freedom, they simultaneously expect assistance and protection in times of crisis, revealing a fundamental contradiction in their beliefs and desires about governance and personal responsibility.
In practice
During a debate about government policies, this quote could highlight the tension between individual freedom and societal safety.
If we did not have a sense of who we were, how we got here, why we want to achieve something - which, on the face of it, on the logic of it, is probably not worth trying - and prove that logic wrong, then you wouldn't succeed; then you would just evaporate.
You need people who have their own views, whose views you respect, whom you can have a productive disagreement with, and work out ideas which you might not have come up with, or who improve on ideas you had.
Just as our forefathers saved and invested to build what we, the current generation, are enjoying today, so, too, we must plant trees so that our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, can enjoy the shade.
You need to have good people: honourable, capable, committed in politics, standing in public office. It's not a guarantee, but it's the ideal we have to aim for.
No government prospers by saying, 'I don't need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.'
It is interesting ... how weapons reflect the soul of the maker.
The future is uncertain but the end is always near.
Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition, and then passing on. A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy to us.
If our goal is to understand the world, to seek a deeper understanding of the world, our general lack of moral diversity here is going to make it harder. Because when people all share values, when people all share morals, they become a team.
Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing.
Because men believe not in Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and hoard. They do not believe in any reward for charity, therefore they will part with nothing.
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