"He who knows the surface of the earth and the topography of a country only through the examination of maps..is like a man who learns the opera of Meyerbeer or Rossini by reading only reviews in the newspapers. The brush of landscape artists Lorrain, Ruysdael, or Calame can reproduce on canvas the sun's ray, the coolness of the heavens, the green of the fields, the majesty of the mountains...but what can never be stolen from Nature is that vivid impression that she alone can and knows how to impart--the music of the birds, the movement of the trees, the aroma peculiar to the place--the inexplicable something the traveller feels that cannot be defined and which seems to awaken in him distant memories of happy days, sorrows and joys gone by, never to return"

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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!"

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

";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."

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

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

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

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

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

"[Noli Me Tángere]*"

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."