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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The youth is the hope of our future.

I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.

I don't think anybody reads a book of poetry front to back. Editors and reviewers only. I don't think anybody else does.

I'm not the first person to sing about God, Jesus, faith [or] any of that, and I won't be the last. And it won't be the last for me, either. If you don't like it, change the channel.

A lot of my love of literature comes from Oz and Alice.

The Spirit works through community. Somebody will have a stupid, screwy idea. That's okay. The point of having creeds and confessions and traditions is to keep us in touch with the obvious errors.

I mean, the 1930s are the birth moment of modern public sector, government-driven infrastructure spending.

A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn't he?

I had to learn the image is not the word, which is a jolt for a literary soul. But it has served me well in terms of understanding plot, in terms of watching actors develop characters.

And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool's eye.

It evolved from my experience in the fifties, growing up during the McCarthy era, and hearing a lot of assumptions that America was wonderful and Communism was terrible.