Jose Rizal
Jose Rizal
José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda or popularly known as José Rizalwas a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain. He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after an anti-colonial revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke...
NationalityFilipino
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth19 June 1861
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.
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.
The world laughs at another man's pain.
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.
It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.
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.
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.
What is death to me? I have sown the seeds others will reap.
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.
Hold high the brow serene, O youth, where now you stand; Let the bright sheen Of your grace be seen, Fair hope of my fatherland!
Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.
Man works for an object. Remove that object and you reduce him into inaction.
The example could encourage others who only fear to start.
The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin.