Ramon Magsaysay Quotes & Sayings

If you look at a farmer and his daily expenditure on existing energy services, it is much higher on an incremental delta basis. And then there is an emotional cost of not providing their kids with the right to educate. If you calculate these costs in economic terms and create a financing mechanism for them to buy it, the emotional delta cost is much higher compared to their household. — Ramon Magsaysay

This country [the Philippines] is like a pyramid, like a tower. It is made up of millions of stones ... And the foundation stone of this pyramid is the common man. — Ramon Magsaysay

Between our way of life and communism there can be no peace, no paralyzing coexistence, no gray neutralism. There can only be conflict-total and without reconciliation. — Ramon Magsaysay

The mistake the world is making with the simple peoples is to try and hurry them into political concepts they don't understand and aren't prepared to cope with. I know. I am a peasant myself ... I say, Spit on the big, fancy schemes. I want all the little things first. Then perhaps we can get on to the bigger things. — Ramon Magsaysay

Comparatively there is a much more awareness about energy resources in other countries and especially in the US and European countries. Also people there are much more serious about what they do. Here, people are more concerned about getting a 'degree' rather than this. — Ramon Magsaysay

I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law. — Ramon Magsaysay

The difference between both is that social entrepreneurship has a much more financial transparency. There is no financial viability and that is where a corporate sector makes a difference because we maintain a balance between both the financial status and the social service. — Ramon Magsaysay

Our expertise is solar energy and we don't want to focus on other forms and we never push for solar form everywhere like say in upper hill areas where eco-hydro or biogas is more viable. — Ramon Magsaysay

Our military offensive is indispensable, since force must be met by force. But our social offensive is the extra weapon which the enemy cannot produce. Here the enemy meets democracy's strongest element-the ability to realize and satisfy the needs of its people without taking from them their freedom and dignity as human beings. — Ramon Magsaysay

Guns alone are not the answer. We must provide hope for young people for better housing, clothing, and food; and if we do, the radicals will wither away — Ramon Magsaysay

The problem is the policy makers don't have practitioners in the policy team. You won't make an IT policy without consulting a Narayan Murthy or Nandan Nilekani. But for energy, people think they know everything and they know what to do for it. That's how the policies are created in Delhi and that needs to change. — Ramon Magsaysay

Substantial progress was made in spreading our foreign trade to other areas. Our total trade with Northwest Europe in the first 8 months of last year was 42.3 per cent above the corresponding period the year previous, and our total trade with Asia was up 13.5 per cent. For the first time since 1919, the United States in the first 8 months of 1956 accounted for less than 60 percent of our total trade. — Ramon Magsaysay

Energy Engineering started first in IIT Kharagpur in 1983 and mine was the third batch. It was definitely not a popular course. It was basically an amalgamation of nuclear, mechanical, chemical engineering, etc. But I don't think it was a big factor because if we look, most of them joined the IT sectors and not the energy sector. — Ramon Magsaysay

You buy a car or any other thing when you see someone else having it. So people will only buy a thing when they see a system in somebody's house and that takes time. The corporate people have taken the poor people for a ride. So that needs to break and the trust needs to be created that this system will actually work. — Ramon Magsaysay