June 12, Independence Day!!

Since two days from now, we will be celebrating our Independence Day here in the Philippines... I would like to share with you some quotes from our National Hero, Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda. We can learn a lot from him....

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

"Each one writes history according to his convenience."

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

"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."

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

"Victory is the child of struggle, joy blossoms from suffering, and redemption is a product of sacrifice."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Virtue lies in the middle ground."

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

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

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

"Truth does not need to borrow garments from falsehood."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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