Jose Rizal Quotes

If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a coordinate element with all that is designated by the terms civilisation, instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty should be undervalued.

Ordinary Chinese can actually make choices about their own lives which wasn’t possible 25 years ago.

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.

I think one of the most important things I can give my children is the right to be themselves.

Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.

My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, health, culture, affluence, comfort.

We have been educated into believing someone else's concept of the deity, and someone else's standard of beauty. You have the right to practice any religion and politics in a way that best suits your freedom, your dignity, and your understanding. And once you do that, you don't apologize.

I know that many people kill off their real personality just to fit into this society, but why do we have to compromise? I never understood that. I decided to try to be myself and to live by my own values rather than those of others.

If you are confident in yourself and however you want yourself to be presented, and you're doing well and doing it because you want to do it and not because someone is pressuring you, then more power to you.

I'm at peace with myself. The main thing is not letting people dictate what I do or what I am.

Not caring more about what other people think than what you think. That's freedom.

I don't want everyone to like me, and I don't choose who likes me. You have to give them the choice, give them the option.

I don't need anybody to tell me how to be alive.

We have pledged ourselves, and of this the United Nations of the world are witness, to give the fullest opportunity for attainment of self-government by India as soon as hostilities are over. I repeat that that is beyond doubt.

The best way to help Burma is to empower the people of Burma, to help us have enough self-confidence to obtain what we want for ourselves.

Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.

Today the Turkish nation is called on to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future.

When freedom returns, so shall I.

Our ancestors have always regarded independence as fundamental to the concept of a nation.

Individuality is the aim of political liberty

Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen who have wrought a revolution in her favor.

Liberty is a right which every individual must be ready to vindicate for himself, and which he who pretends to bestow as a favor, has by that very act in reality denied. Even political establishments, though they appear to be independent of the will and arbitration of men, cannot be relied on for the preservation of freedom; they may nourish, but should not supersede that firm and resolute spirit, with which the liberal mind is always prepared to resist indignities, and to refer its safety to itself.

In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.