Journalists

"Reading changed dreams into life and life into dreams."

"A clean conscience might help you to get into heaven. but it won't help your career."

"You can't make facts fit the rules, it is the other way round. The rules have to be adopted to fit the facts."

"’T was then we luvit ilk ither weel, ’T was then we twa did part: Sweet time—sad time! twa bairns at scule— Twa bairns and but ae heart."

"I ’ve wandered east, I ’ve wandered west, Through mony a weary way; But never, never can forget The luve o’ life’s young day!"

"And we, with Nature’s heart in tune, Concerted harmonies."

"Mournfully, oh, mournfully, The midnight wind doth sigh, Like some sweet plaintive melody Of ages long gone by."

"Once Europe existed in a Dark Age and Islam carried the torch of learning. Now we Muslims live in a Dark age."

"The ways of the British are inscrutable but they always seem to obtain their own ends without compromising their dignity or their honor."

"Although age has its normal limits, it may be extended by two things-the study of history and by travel. Reading history broadens one's perception of the creation of the world, while travel extends one's field of vision."

"The oppressed martyrs of our culture have shed blood that nourish the red tulips of our nation."

"A gem of a man. (Un perla de hombre.)"

"Sleep in the shadows of nothingness Redeemer of an enslaved land — Don't weep in the mystery of the tomb Nor grieve the momentary triumph of the Spaniard; For if the bullet ravaged your skull Your idea vanquished an empire!"

"The life Rizal lived is a more abiding gift than the things he said and wrote. His life will forever be of inestimable importance."

"His coming to the world is like the appearance of a rare comet, whose brilliance appears only every other century."

"Rizal is the spirit of contradiction; a soul that dreads the revolution, although deep down desires it."

"One of the best exemplars of nationalist thinking."

"To echo the first Filipino, you get the Rizal you deserve. (alluding to Rizal's statement, 'You get the government you deserve')"

"The first Filipino."

"Rizal's greatest misfortune was becoming a national hero of the Philippines. He is everywhere and therefore nowhere."

"There is no doubt that we would have made Rizal one of our heroes even without American intervention."

"Although the Americans encouraged the hero-worship of Rizal, the man was already a national hero to the Filipinos long before the Americans sponsored him as such."

"The American decision to make Rizal our national hero was a master stroke."

"It is eminently proper that Rizal should have become the acknowledged national hero of the Philippine people. Rizal never advocated independence, nor did he advocate armed resistance to the government. He urged reform from within by publicity, by public education, and appeal to the public conscience."

"Under what clime or what skies, has tyranny claimed a nobler victim?"

"Taft quickly decided that it would be extremely useful for the Filipinos to have a national hero of their revolution against the Spanish in order to channel their feelings and focus their resentment backward on Spain. But he told his advisers that he wanted it to be someone who really wasn’t so much of a revolutionary that, if his life were examined too closely or his works read too carefully, this could cause us any trouble. He chose Rizal as the man who fit his model."

"And now, gentlemen, you must have a national hero."

"In recognition of the aspirations of the Filipino nation and in proclaiming its noble and patriotic sentiments, I hereby decree."

"He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and a smelly fish."

"[Noli Me Tángere]*"

";De nobis, post haec, tristis sententia fertur!:After all this, you still speak ill of us!"

";Pure and spotless must the victim be if the sacrifice is to be acceptable."

";The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin."

";The school of suffering tempers the spirit, the arena of combat strengthens the soul."

";You must shatter the vase to spread its perfume, and smite the rock to get the spark."

";It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted in the field without becoming part of an edifice."

";Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?"

";There are no tyrants where there are no slaves."

"Not all were asleep during the night of our forefathers!"

"Fate presented itself to some like a chinese fan--one side black, the other side gilded with flowers."

"Believing in accidents is like believing in miracles--both presuppose that God does not know the future."

"Fame to be sweet must resound in the ears of those we love, in the atmosphere of the land that will guard our ashes. Fame should hover over our tomb to warm with its heat the chill of death, so that we may not be completely reduced to nothingness, that something of us may survive."

"Truth does not need to borrow garments from error. (Also translated as: Truth does not need to borrow garments from falsehood.)"

"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!"

"I go where there are no slaves, hangmen or oppressors; Where faith does not kill; where the one who reigns is God."

"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."

"It breaks immortality's neck Contemplates crime and therefore halts it; It humbles barbarous nations And makes of savages, champions."

"The Filipino loves his country no less than the Spaniard does his, and although he is quieter, more peaceful and with more difficulty stirred up, once aroused he does not hesitate and for him the struggle means death to the finish. He has both the meekness and ferocity of the carabao. Climate affects bipeds in the same way it does quadrupeds."

"Law has no skin, reason has no nostrils."

"Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows--it is the result of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces."