Quotes from Jose Rizal

The Spaniard is gallant and patriotic, and sacrifices everything, in favorable moments, for his country's good. He has the intrepidity of his bull.

China will consider herself fortunate if she succeeds in keeping herself intact and is not dismembered or partitioned among the European powers that are colonizing the continent of Asia.

The Philippine races, like all the Malays, do not succumb before the foreigner, like the Australians, the Polynesians and the Indians of the New World.

Experience has everywhere shown us, and especially in the Philippines, that the classes which are better off have always been addicted to peace and order because they live comparatively better and may be the losers in civil disturbances.

I wish to show those who deny us Patriotism that we know how to die for our country and convictions.

It is enough for the evil people to succeed, for the good people to do nothing.

Hold high the brow serene, O youth, where now you stand; Let the bright sheen Of your grace be seen, Fair hope of my fatherland!

I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land. You who have it to see, welcome it ... and forget not those who have fallen during the night!

Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows, and necessity is the resultant of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces.

It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.

The government that governs from afar absolutely requires that the truth and the facts reach its knowledge by every possible channel, so that it may weigh and estimate them better, and this need increases when a country like the Philippines is concerned, where the inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities.

Orientals, and the Malays in particular, are a sensitive people: delicacy of sentiment is predominant with them.

To the questioning glance of love, as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply; the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer.

Oh how beautiful to fall to give you flight, to die to give you life, to rest under your sky; and in your enchanted land forever sleep.

There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.

While a people preserves its language; it preserves the marks of liberty.

Justice is the foremost virtue of the civilizing races. It subdues the barbarous nations, while injustice arouses the weakest.

I may be what my enemies desire me to be, yet never an accusation are they able to hurl against me which makes me blush or lower my forehead; and I hope that God will be merciful enough with me, to prevent me from committing one of those faults which would involve my family.

When there is in nature no fixed condition, how much less must there be in the life of a people, beings endowed with mobility and movement!

The people no longer has confidence in its former protectors, now its exploiters and executioners. The masks have fallen.

Perhaps the great American Republic, whose interests lie in the Pacific and who has no hand in the spoliation of Africa, may someday dream of foreign possession.

No one ceases to be a man, no one forfeits his rights to civilization merely by being more or less uncultured, and since the Filipino is regarded as a fit citizen when he is asked to pay taxes or shed his blood to defend the fatherland, why must this fitness be denied him when the question arises of granting him some right?

One only dies once, and if one does not die well, a good opportunity is lost and will not present itself again.

Spain, must we some day tell Filipinas that thou hast no ear for her woes and that if she wishes to be saved she must redeem herself?