Rizal's Works

“Jose Rizal’s Writings”

Essay:

“Man works for an object. Remove that object and you reduce him into inaction.”
-Jose Rizal, Indolence of the Filipinos

“Without education and liberty, which are the soil and the sun of man, no reform is possible no measure can give the result desired.”
-Jose Rizal, Indolence of the Filipinos

“A government that rules a country from a great distance is the one that has the most need for a free press more so even than the government of the home country.”
-Jose Rizal, The Philippines: A Century Hence

“To wish that the alleged child remain in its swaddling clothes is to risk that it may turn against its nurse and flee, tearing away the old rags that bind it.”
-Jose Rizal, The Philippines: A Century Hence

“Ignorance is servitude, because as a man thinks, so he is; a man who does not think for himself and allowed him to be guided by the thought of another is like the beast led by a halter.”
-Jose Rizal, Letter to the Young Women of Malolos

“Maturity is the fruit of infancy and the infant is formed on the lap of its mother.”
-Jose Rizal, Letter to the Young Women of Malolos

I wish to show those who deny us patriotism that we know how to die for our country and convictions.
-Jose Rizal, Inscribed at Fort Santiago Walls

“To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open the book that tells of her past.”
-Jose Rizal, Inscribed at Fort Santiago Walls

“Some have sacrificed for their youth, their pleasures; others have dedicated to her the splendors of their genius; others shed their blood; all have died, bequeathing to their motherland an immense fortune: LIBERTY and GLORY…”
-Jose Rizal, Love of Country

“You have lost a father, mother, brother, wife, child, in short, love upon which you have founded your dreams, and you find in yourselves a deep and horrible void. There you have the Motherland: Love her.”
-Jose Rizal, Love of Country

Poems:

“Teach, us ye the laborious work
To pursue your footsteps we wish,
For tomorrow when country calls us
We may be able your task to finish.”
-Jose Rizal, Hymn to Labor

“For the Motherland in war,
For the Motherland in peace,
Will the Filipino keep watch,
He will live until life will cease!”
-Jose Rizal, Hymn to Labor

“Come now, thou genius grand,
And bring down inspiration;
With thy mighty hand,
Swifter than the wind's violation,
Raise the eager mind to higher station.”
-Jose Rizal, To the Filipino Youth

“Thou, who by sharp strife
Wakest thy mind to life ;
And the memory bright
Of thy genius' light
Makest immortal in its strength”
-Jose Rizal, To the Filipino Youth

“Like to a leaf that is fallen and withered,
Tossed by the tempest from pole unto pole ; hus roams the pilgrim abroad without purpose,
Roams without love, without country or soul.”
-Jose Rizal, Song of the Traveler

“Home may the pilgrim return in the future,
Back to his loved ones his footsteps he bends ;
Naught wìll he find but the snow and the ruins,
Ashes of love and the tomb of his friends,”
-Jose Rizal, Song of the Traveler

“I remember a simple town;
My cradle, joy and boon,
Beside the cool lagoon
The seat of all my wish.”
-Jose Rizal, In Memory of My Town

“Bring back my gentle hours,
As do the birds when the flowers
Would again begin to blow!
-Jose Rizal, In Memory of My Town

“Warm and beautiful like a houri of yore, as gracious and as pure as the break of dawn when darling clouds take on a sapphire tone, sleeps a goddess on the Indian shore.”
-Jose Rizal, To the Philippines

“The small waves of the sonorous sea assail her feet with ardent, amorous kisses, while the intellectual West adores her smile; and the old hoary Pole, her flower veil.”
-Jose Rizal, To the Philippines

Novels:

“Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.”
-José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not)

“I have to believe much in God because I have lost my faith in man.”
-José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not)

“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.”
-José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not)

“When a people are denied light, home, freedom, justice, all the good things without which life is not possible, and which constitute man's patrimony, a person has the right to deal with the people who despoil him, like a thief who assaults us in the roadway. No qualifications, no exceptions.”
-José Rizal, El Filibusterismo

“A lie among the stars is a comfortable lie.”
-José Rizal, El Filibusterismo

“The glory of saving a country doesn't mean having to use the measures that contributed to its ruin!”
-José Rizal, El Filibusterismo

Mae Bless S. Espina
BMLS – 2B