Jose Rizal Quotes

No one blames a pilot who takes refuge in port when the storm begins to blow. It is not cowardice to duck under a bullet; what is wrong is to defy it only to fall and never rise again.

He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.

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.

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

She was white, perhaps too white. Her eyes, which were almost always cast down, when she raised them testified to the purest of souls, and when she smiled, revealing her small, white teeth, one might be tempted to say that a rose is merely a plant, and ivory just an elephant's tusk.

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.

To be happy does not mean to indulge in foolishness!

The world laughs at another man's pain.

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.

The youth is the hope of our future.

The appetite is sharpened by the first bites.

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

To the questioning glance of love, as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply; the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer.

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

He who would love much has also much to suffer.

Our liberty will not be secured at the sword's point... We must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when the people reaches that height, God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards, and liberty will shine out like the first dawn.

To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open a book that tells of her past.

Let us not ask for miracles, let us not ask for concern with what is good for the country of him who comes as a stranger to make his fortune and leave afterwards.

Ignorance is servitude, because as a man thinks, so he is; a man who does not think for himself and allows himself to be guided by the thought of another is like the beast led by a halter.

Who does not love his own tongue is far worse than a brute or stinking fish.

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

What is death to me? I have sown the seeds others will reap.

I have to believe much in God because I have lost my faith in man.

Climate affects bipeds in the same way it does quadrupeds.

Filipinos don't realize that victory is the child of struggle, that joy blossoms from suffering, and redemption is a product of sacrifice.

The example could encourage others who only fear to start.

Friar! What a strange name. I don't remember having created such a thing!

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

For myself I think that one wrong does not right the other, and forgiveness cannot be won with useless tears or alms to the Church.

While a people preserves its language; it preserves the marks of liberty.

On this battlefield man has no better weapon than his intelligence, no other force but his heart.

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.

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!

But because their ancestors were men of righteousness, shall we consent to the abuses of their degenerate descendants? Because they did us a great good, would we be guilty if we prevented them from doing us evil?

Tomorrow at 7, I shall be shot; but I am innocent of the crime of rebellion. I am going to die with a tranquil conscience.

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

Why independence? If the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow.

I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them.

I die without seeing dawn's light shining on my country... You, who will see it, welcome it for me...don't forget those who fell during the nighttime.

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.

It is enough for the evil people to succeed, for the good people to do nothing.

The people do not complain because they have no voice; do not move because they are lethargic, and you say that they do not suffer because you have not seen their hearts bleed.

There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.

It is not the criminals who arouse the hatred of others, but the men who are honest.

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

I honor the father in his son, not the son in his father. Each one receives a reward or punishment for his deeds, but not for the acts of others.

Genius has no country. It blossoms everywhere. Genius is like the light, the air. It is the heritage of all.

Dying people don't need medicine, the ones who remain do.