Quotes from Ferdinand Marcos

We love your adherence to democratic principles and to democratic processes.

I am ashamed to run against a lady. It's demeaning, very degrading. I have always refused to argue with a lady.

America must realize, there are conditions she must accept in Asia. The first is a diversity of Asian cultures, governments, economic and political systems; the second, that to run against the tide of Asian nationalism is worse than impractical - it is also highly dangerous.

My life has been devoted to the upliftment of the Filipino by reestablishing his identity and dignity.

Filipinos are not worse than any other colonized people except that our colonization was a little longer, and the independence movement was always dictated in political terms, never in social ones. We borrowed terms, but we didn't understand them.

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

There are many things we do not want about the world. Let us not just mourn them. Let us change them.

I am not afraid to go to jail.

My friends in the opposition have forgotten that the constitution of the Philippines was amended in 1973 with their participation. The constitution mandates the administration, including the Batasan, or legislature, to convert slowly into a semiparliamentary form of government. The president in such a situation can issue decrees and edicts.

My countrymen: we have reached a turning point in our history. The choice is yours. Shall we venture into this brave new world, bright with possibilities, or retreat to the safety of our familiar but sterile past? I am for crossing the frontier.

I was deposed by a coup d'etat, by friends that I trusted and aided by the American Government.

The primary problem in many modernizing societies is not liberty but the creation of a legitimate public order. Men may, of course, have order without liberty, but they cannot have liberty without order.

Little boys have amazing minds.

To preserve our sovereign integrity, we must prove to them nobody need tell us how to hold a clean and democratic election.

To write our constitution is for the past, the present, and the future to come together all at once in one single motion, in one single heave, one single cry. For we correct the errors of the past and chart a new course for the future, based on the experience of the present.

I have been called brave in my time, but brave as I may have been against foreign invaders, I have no heart to shed Filipino blood.

Let us not be so naive as to think that revolution is just a matter of social or economic discontent.

For us, overseas employment addresses two major problems: unemployment and the balance of payments position.

We do not postpone the participation of the lower classes of our people in the profits of economic enterprise, and in other countries, they do postpone it. In the long run, I think our policy is better, and we stand by it.

There is a standard joke in the family. Probably we should go into selling second-hand shoes.

Nobody is impervious to misfortune.

The one indisputable reality of dictatorship is that dissent, insult, and malevolent language do not go unpunished if it is allowed at all.

Once a champion, always a champion.

I would like to see whether my supposed successors can really operate the government without causing a crisis.