Rizal The Philippines Quotes & Sayings

Rizal is a compulsory course in school, but few teachers make Rizal's novels interesting. If students are taught to enjoy Rizal's works as literature instead of as a lodemine of 'patriotic' allusions I am sure they would not mind reading and rereading the 'Noli me Tangere'. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

Because of the conflicts and challenges we face in today's world, I wish to suggest a single choice - a choice of peace and protection and a choice that is appropriate for all. That choice is faith. Be aware that faith is not a free gift given without thought, desire, or effort. It does not come as the dew falls from heaven. The Savior said, "Come unto me" (Matthew 11:28) and "Knock, and it shall be [given] you" (Matthew 7:7). These are action verbs - come, knock. They are choices. So I say, choose faith. — Richard C. Edgley

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

I've concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn't dollars, but the individual people whose lives I've touched. I think that's the way it will work for us all. Don't worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. — Clayton Christensen

Yes, nitroglycerin," Simoun repeated slowly, with a frigid smile, staring at the glass flask with delight. "It's more than nitroglycerin, however. It's a concentration of tears, compressed, hatred, injustices, offenses. This is the supreme arbiter of weakness, force against force, violence against violence ... a moment ago I was hesitating, but then you arrived and convinced me. Tonight those most dangerous of tyrants who have hidden behind God and the state, whose abuses remain unpunished because no one can take them to task. Tonight, the Philippines will hear an explosion that will convert into rubble the infamous monument whose rottenness I helped bring about. — Jose Rizal

Despite very harsh living conditions and the trauma of what they went through, they [Sudanese refugees] had a lot of dignity — Julien Clerc

Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer - for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them. — Sydney J. Harris

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

I have observed that the prosperity or misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of its forefathers. -Juan Crisostomo Ibarra — Jose Rizal

In the Philippines you are not considered to be honorable unless you have been to jail. — Jose Rizal

It is difficult for young players to learn - because of the great emphasis on records - but, ideally, the joy and frustration of sport should come from the performance itself, not the score. While he is playing, the worst thing a player can think about in terms of concentration - and therefore of success - is losing. The next worst is winning. — John Wooden

As you can see, there are quite a number of things taught in school that one has to unlearn or at least correct. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

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

When I met Peter Weir, we did a movie called 'Master and Commander' together, and that's when I really started to understand the power of acting, the power of directing, finding the emotion in performance. — Robert Stromberg

Religion, in refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime imputed to you; the government, in surrounding your case with mystery and shadow, gives reason for belief in some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, in venerating your memory and calling you martyrs, in no way acknowledges your guilt. — Jose Rizal

Children need the lie to be brave enough to sleep in their beds; parents need it to be able to get up the next morning. — Fredrik Backman

The sword must yield to the toga, Cicero had told the Roman Senate, and the friars in the Philippines thought a cassock was as good as a toga. But — Jose Rizal

Sometimes it pays not to be interested in what happened but in what did not happen. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

O, in the solitude of those mountains I feel free, free as the air, like a light blasting unharnessed through space. A thousand cities, a thousand palaces I would give just for a corner of the Philippines where far away from man I could feel truly free! — Jose Rizal

I was to discover that like the overcoat that snugly wraps Rizal in all his statues and photographs, Rizal is obscured by countless myths and preconceived ideas ... Without his overcoat, Rizal was human, like you and me. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

The man who uses his hands is a laborer. The man who uses his mind is a master. But the man who gives his heart to the passion is a craftsman. — Anonymous

Can you imagine the feeling of being an oppressed colonial being addressed respectfully by a colonizer in the mother country? — Ambeth R. Ocampo

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

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

Doreen Fernandez' foreword to "Rizal Without the Overcoat":
His essays remind us that history need not and should not be relegated to schoolbooks and classrooms, where it often becomes a set of names and dates to memorize and spew out on test papers. History is a living and lively account of what we were and are; it could and should be as real to each of us as stories about family or about recent and past events.. If all of that makes us understand humanity better, so does history make us understand ourselves, and our country infinitely better, in the context of our culture and our society. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

She supposed that all those years of loving a person who was dishonest had taught her a few things. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Well, you've got the growling part down pat already. Probaly all those years of practice."
He began to rise, his legs wobbly.
"All right, I'm coming back. I just didn't want to be in your way."
A grunt. Your not. Or that's what I hoped he meant.
"You can understand me, can't you?" I said as I returned to sit on his discarded sweatshirt. "You know what I'm saying."
He tried to nod, then snarled at the awkwardness of it.
"Not easy when you can't talk, is it?" I grinned. "Well, not easy for you. I could get used to it."
He grumbled, but I coulld see the relief in his eyes, like he was glad to see me smile.
"So I was right, wasn't I? It's still you even if wolf form."
He grunted.
"No sudden urges to go kill something?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Hey, you're the one who was worried." I paused. "And I don't smell like dinner, right?"
I got a real good look for that one.
"Just covering my bases. — Kelley Armstrong

Rizal's greatest misfortune is being national hero of the Philippines. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

Intimate, loving, and enduring relationships with our family and close friends will be among the sources of the deepest joy in our lives. — Clayton M Christensen

Filipinos are not a reading people, and despite the compulsory course on the life and works of Rizal today, from the elementary to the university levels, it is accepted that the 'Noli me Tangere' and 'El Filibusterismo' are highly regarded but seldom read (if not totally ignored). Therefore one asks, how can unread novels exert any influence? — Ambeth R. Ocampo

The divine flame of thought is inextinguishable in the Filipino people, and somehow or other it will shine forth and compel recognition. It is impossible to brutalize the inhabitants of the Philippines! — 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

There is only one essence, always the same. As yet, man has found no other means to elevate himself - none but the routing of matter and the submission of the individual to an end which transcends the individual, even though that end be chimerical. When the heart believes and loves, nothing chimerical exists; nothing exists but — Nikos Kazantzakis