Malaysia is ruled by conservatives whose only desire is to develop the — Mahathir Mohamad

"Only when Islam is interpreted so as to be relevant in a world which is different from what it was 1,400 years ago can Islam be regarded as a religion for all ages."

"What we need today if we are to achieve some semblance of a fair distribution of international wealth is sincerity based on true friendship and a clear understanding of the moral obligations that we all have towards each other."

"The ASEAN nations are not intending to compete with the developed countries. Rather they wish to complement."

"Our economic policies are based on clear and definite political objectives. If we impose conditions on foreign investors, it is not because we grudge you your profits, but because we have a need to reconcile foreign economic incursions with national aspirations."

"We do not nationalize, for example. [...] The predictability pertaining to economic policies is our asset."

"I hope that you will take this opportunity to understand this region better and to explore ways and means of establishing better cooperation between American businessmen and financiers with ASEANs counterparts."

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that theres free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

"With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs."

"The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it."

"I should say that when people talk about capitalism its a bit of a joke. Theres no such thing. No country, no business class, has ever been willing to subject itself to the free market, free market discipline. Free markets are for others. Like, the Third World is the Third World because they had free markets rammed down their throat. Meanwhile, the enlightened states, England, the United States, others, resorted to massive state intervention to protect private power, and still do. Thats right up to the present. I mean, the Reagan administration for example was the most protectionist in post-war American history. Virtually the entire dynamic economy in the United States is based crucially on state initiative and intervention: computers, the internet, telecommunication, automation, pharmaceutical, you just name it. Run through it, and you find massive ripoffs of the public, meaning, a system in which under one guise or another the public pays the costs and takes the risks, and profit is privatized. Thats very remote from a free market. Free market is like what India had to suffer for a couple hundred years, and most of the rest of the Third World."

"I appeal to all pupils, students and young people, asking you to focus on the horizons that are opening up for you, and which you could only dream of a year ago. Our future will depend on your desire for education and moral values as well as on your entrepreneurial spirit."

"We have created a wealthy society with tens of millions of talented, resourceful individuals who play virtually no role whatsoever as citizens. Bringing these people in — with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources — is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve our problems."