Jose Rizal

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

— Jose Rizal

The youth is the hope of our future.

— Jose Rizal

If the Philippines secure their independence after heroic and stubborn conflicts, they can rest assured that neither England, nor Germany, nor France, and still less Holland, will dare to take up what Spain has been unable to hold.

— Jose Rizal

If the Philippines must remain under the control of Spain, they will necessarily have to be transformed in a political sense, for the course of their history and the needs of their inhabitants so require.

— Jose Rizal

In the Middle Ages, everything bad was the work of the devil, everything good, the work of God. Today, the French see everything in reverse and blame the Germans for it.

— Jose Rizal

To doubt God is to doubt one's own conscience, and in consequence it would be to doubt everything.

— Jose Rizal

No, let us not make God in our image, poor inhabitants that we are of a distant planet lost in infinite space. However brilliant and sublime our intelligence may be, it is scarcely more than a small spark which shines and in an instant is extinguished, and it alone can give us no idea of that blaze, that conflagration, that ocean of light.

— Jose Rizal

I believe in revelation, but not in revelation which each religion claims to possess... but in the living revelation which surrounds us on every side — mighty, eternal, unceasing, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as is the being from whom it proceeds, in that revelation which speaks to us and penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die.

— Jose Rizal

Each one writes history according to his convenience.

— Jose Rizal

Today is Christmas Eve. Whether or not Christ was born exactly on this date is not important. But chronological accuracy has nothing to do with tonight's event. A grand genius had been born who preached truth and love; who suffered because of his mission; and on account of his sufferings the world has become better, if not saved. Only it gives me nausea to see how some people abuse his name to commit numerous crimes. If he is in heaven, he will certainly protest!

— Jose Rizal

Is it not sad, I said to my countrymen, that we have to learn from a foreigner about ourselves? Thanks to the German scholars we get accurate information about ourselves, and when everything in our country has been destroyed and we wish to verify the historical correctness of certain facts we shall have to come to Germany to search for these facts, in German museums and books!

— Jose Rizal

The Philippines should be grateful to you if you would write a complete history of our country from an impartial point of view.. But don't expect thanks and laurels--crowns of flowers and laurels are the inventions of free people. But perhaps your children may gather the fruit of what the father planted.

— Jose Rizal

We want the happiness of the Philippines, but we want to obtain it through noble and just means. If I have to commit villainy to make her happy, I would refuse to do so, because I am sure that what is built on sand sooner or later would tumble down.

— Jose Rizal

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

— Jose Rizal

To live is to be among men, and to be among men is to struggle, a struggle not only with them but with oneself; with their passions, but also with one's own.

— Jose Rizal

It was a world which granted privileges to some and imposed prohibitions on others...Endowed with strength and eager to learn, one had to drag himself in a narrow prison cell when he could see an open field, a vast horizon in the distance; when he could feel the beatings of a heart; and when he believed himself entitled to enjoy the beauty of a dream.

— Jose Rizal

Friar! What a strange name. I don't remember having created such a thing! (God speaking to the angel Gabriel)

— Jose Rizal

Death has always been the first sign of European civilization when introduced in the Pacific.

— Jose Rizal

No one has a monopoly of the true God, nor is there a nation or religion that can claim, or at any rate prove, that it has been given the exclusive right to the Creator or sole knowledge of His Being.

— Jose Rizal

The sea, the sea is everything! Its sovereign mass

— Jose Rizal

The world laughs at another man's pain.

— Jose Rizal

He who would love much has also much to suffer.

— Jose Rizal

Muse who in the past inspired me to sing of the throes of love:

— Jose Rizal

No good water comes from a muddy spring. No sweet fruit comes from a bitter seed.

— Jose Rizal

The tyranny of some is possible only through the cowardice of others.

— Jose Rizal

Man works for an object. Remove that object and you reduce him into inaction.

— Jose Rizal

Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks.

— Jose Rizal

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

— Jose Rizal

Virtue lies in the middle ground.

— Jose Rizal

God has made man a cosmopolite. He created seas for ships to glide on, the wind to push them, and the stars to guide them even in darkest night.

— Jose Rizal

Travel is a caprice in childhood, a passion in youth, a necessity in manhood, and an elegy in old age.

— Jose Rizal

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

— Jose Rizal

Law has no skin, reason has no nostrils.

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

It breaks immortality's neck

— Jose Rizal

Oh how beautiful to fall to give you flight,

— Jose Rizal

I go where there are no slaves, hangmen or oppressors;

— Jose Rizal

The youth is the hope of our future.

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

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?

— Jose Rizal

As God has not made anything useless in this world, as all beings fulfill obligations or a role in the sublime drama of Creation, I cannot exempt from this duty, and small though it be, I too have a mission to fill, as for example: alleviating the sufferings of my fellowmen.

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

I do not write for this generation. I am writing for other ages. If this could read me, they would burn my books, the work of my whole life. On the other hand, the generation which interprets these writings will be an educated generation; they will understand me and say: 'Not all were asleep in the nighttime of our grandparents.'

— Jose Rizal

My countrymen, I have given proofs that I am one most anxious for liberties for our country, and I am still desirous of them. But I place as a prior condition the education of the people, that by means of instruction and industry our country may have an individuality of its own and make itself worthy of these liberties.

— Jose Rizal

It is probable that England will look favorably upon the independence of the Philippines, for it will open their ports to her and afford greater freedom to her commerce.

— Jose Rizal

To doubt God is to doubt one's own conscience, and in consequence, it would be to doubt everything; and then what is life for?

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

The batteries are gradually becoming charged, and if the prudence of the government does not provide an outlet for the currents that are accumulating, some day the spark will be generated.

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

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.

— Jose Rizal

History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals. One of the two had to yield and succumb.

— Jose Rizal

The youth is the hope of our future.

— Jose Rizal