José Rizal Quotes

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

Letter to Mariano Ponce, (1890)

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

Source: Noli Me Tángere

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

"Como se gobiernan las Filipinas" (How one governs in the Philippines), published in La Solidaridad (15 December 1890)

“I don't see why I should bow my head when I could hold it high, or place it in the hands of my enemies when I can defeat them.”

Source: Noli Me Tángere

“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”

“He who would love much has also much to suffer.”

Source: Noli Me Tángere

“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!”

"To My__" (December 1890)

“Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.”

Letter to Blumentritt (24 December 1886)

“; There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.”

Source: Noli Me Tángere

“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.”

El Filibusterismo

“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.”

Source: Noli Me Tángere

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

"Laughter and Tears", an essay (c.1884)

“Not all were asleep during the night of our forefathers!”

Letter to the Young Women of Malolos (22 February 1889) - translated from Tagalog by Gregorio Zaide

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

Noli me Tangere

“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.”

Letter to the Young Women of Malolos

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

Noli me Tangere

“Law has no skin, reason has no nostrils.”

"The Philippines: A Century Hence"

“Each one writes history according to his convenience.”

"The Philippines: A Century Hence"

“The world laughs at another man's pain.”

Letter to Blumentritt, written at Leipzig,(22 August 1886)

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

"Song of the Wanderer", st.8 - translated by Nick Joaquin.

“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.”

Annotations to Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

“Virtue lies in the middle ground.”

Letter to his family, Dapitan (c. 1884)

“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.”

"Los Viajes"

“; Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?”

Letter to Blumentritt, (31 January 1887)

“He who knows the surface of the earth and the topography of a country only through the examination of maps.. is like a man who learns the opera of Meyerbeer or Rossini by reading only reviews in the newspapers. The brush of landscape artists Lorrain, Ruysdael, or Calame can reproduce on canvas the sun's ray, the coolness of the heavens, the green of the fields, the majesty of the mountains…but what can never be stolen from Nature is that vivid impression that she alone can and knows how to impart--the music of the birds, the movement of the trees, the aroma peculiar to the place--the inexplicable something the traveller feels that cannot be defined and which seems to awaken in him distant memories of happy days, sorrows and joys gone by, never to return”

El Filibusterismo

“; De nobis, post haec, tristis sententia fertur!:After all this, you still speak ill of us!”

"Los Viajes" in La Solidaridad (15 May 1889)- translated from the Spanish by Nick Joaquin

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

El Filibusterismo

“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.”

El Filibusterismo

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

Letter to Fr. Pastells (4 April 1893)

“; 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.”

"Los Viajes"

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

El Filibusterismo

“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.”

"The Lord Gazes at the Philippine Islands", an allegory. (date unknown)

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

Annotations to Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas - translated by Austin Craig

“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.”

"Los Viajes"

“; The school of suffering tempers the spirit, the arena of combat strengthens the soul.”

"To My__" (December 1890)- translated by Nick Joaquin

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

El Filibusterismo

“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!”

"Por La Education" (To Education, c. 1876) - translator unknown

“; Pure and spotless must the victim be if the sacrifice is to be acceptable.”

Letter to Blumentritt (13 April 1887)

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

El Filibusterismo

“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.”

"Indolence of the Filipino" in La Solidaridad (1890)

“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.”

"Mi Retiro", st.6 - translated by Nick Joaquin.

"Mi Ultimo Adios", st. 5

“it is finished”