84 Jose Rizal Quotes

Jose Rizal quotes

1. 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.

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Each one writes history according to his convenience.

6. 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!

7. 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!

8. 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.

9. 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.

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

11. 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.

12. ...Does your Excellency know the spirit of (my) country? If you did, you would not say that I am 'a spirit twisted by a German education,' for the spirit that animates me I already had since childhood, before I learned a word of German. My spirit is 'twisted' because I have been reared among injustices and abuses which I saw everywhere, because since a child I have seen many suffer stupidly and because I also have suffered. My 'twisted spirit' is the product of that constant vision of the moral ideal that succumbs before the powerful reality of abuses, arbitrariness, hypocrisies, farces, violence, perfidies and other base passions. And 'twisted' like my spirit is that of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who have not yet left their miserable homes, who speak no other language except their own, and who, if they could write or express their thoughts, would make my Noli me tangere very tiny indeed, and with their volumes there would be enough to build pyramids for the corpses of all the tyrants...

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

14. 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.

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

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

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

18. 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.

19. The sea, the sea is everything! Its sovereign mass brings to me atoms of a myriad faraway lands; Its bright smile animates me in the limpid mornings And when at the end of day my faith has failed me My heart echoes the sound of its sorrow in the sands.

20. The world laughs at another man's pain.

21. He who would love much has also much to suffer.

22. Muse who in the past inspired me to sing of the throes of love: Go and repose. What I need is a sword, rivers of gold, and acrid prose.

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

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

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

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

27. Virtue lies in the middle ground.

28. 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.

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

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

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

32. 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.

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

34. 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.

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

36. 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!

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

38. 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.

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

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

41. Not all were asleep during the night of our forefathers!

42. There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.

43. Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?

44. 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.

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

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

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

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

49. And now gentlemen, you must have a national hero!

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

51. The choice of Rizal as a national hero was a master stroke by the Americans.

52. The first Filipino.

53. To echo the first Filipino, you get the Rizal you deserve. (alluding to Rizal's statement, 'You get the government you deserve')

54. One of the best exemplars of nationalist thinking.

55. Rizal is the spirit of contradiction; a soul that dreads the revolution, although deep down desires it.

56. A gem of a man. (Un perla de hombre.)

57. His coming to the world is like the appearance of a rare comet, whose brilliance appears only every other century.

58. The life Rizal lived is a more abiding gift than the things he said and wrote. His life will forever be of inestimable importance.

59. Sleep in the shadows of nothingness Redeemer of an enslaved land-- Don't weep in the mystery of the tomb Nor grieve the momentary triumph of the Spaniard; For if the bullet ravaged your skull Your idea vanquished an empire!

60. Rizal, Jose (1891, Ghent) El Filibusterismo (The Reign of Greed). English translation by Charles Derbyshire published 1912, Philippine Education Co., Manila.Etext available at Project Gutenberg

61. Rizal, Jose (1887, Berlin) Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer). English translation by Charles Derbyshire published 1912, Philippine Education Co., Manila.Etext available at Project Gutenberg

62. Mi ultimo adios (the original Spanish). First printing 1897, Hong Kong. Etext available at Project Gutenberg

63. Zaide, Gregorio (2003), Jose Rizal: Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist and National Hero. National Bookstore, Manila. ISBN 9710805207

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

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

3. Your enemies hate you more than they hate your ideas. Should you want a project to be undone propose it. Even if it were as useful as a bishop's mire it would be rejected. Once you are defeated let the humblest-looking among you sponsor it and your enemies to humble you will approve it.

4. There now exists a factor which was formerly lacking - the spirit of the nation has been aroused, and a common misfortune, a common debasement, has united all the inhabitants of the Islands.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Spain, must we some day tell Filipinas that thou hast no ear for her woes and that if she wishes to be saved she must redeem herself?

8. The people no longer has confidence in its former protectors, now its exploiters and executioners. The masks have fallen.

9. 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.

10. Routine is a declivity down which many governments slide, and routine says that freedom of the press is dangerous.

11. 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.

12. I may be what my enemies desire me to be, yet never an accusation are they able to hurl against me which makes me blush or lower my forehead; and I hope that God will be merciful enough with me, to prevent me from committing one of those faults which would involve my family.

13. The example could encourage others who only fear to start.

14. 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.

15. Treat your old parents as you would like to be treated by your children later.

16. Regret always comes last. :)

17. 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.

18. China will consider herself fortunate if she succeeds in keeping herself intact and is not dismembered or partitioned among the European powers that are colonizing the continent of Asia.

19. The Philippine races, like all the Malays, do not succumb before the foreigner, like the Australians, the Polynesians and the Indians of the New World.

20. 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.

21. 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.