“I have observed that the prosperity or misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of its forefathers. -Juan Crisostomo Ibarra”

“In every instance I noted that a people’s prosperity or misery lay in direct proportion to its freedom or its inhibitions and, along the same lines, of the sacrifice or selfishness of its ancestors.”

“How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra."Almost seven years.""Then you have probably forgotten all about it.""Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten me, I have always thought about it.”

“The glory of saving a country doesn't mean having to use the measures that contributed to its ruin!”

“When a people holds onto its language, it holds onto a semblance of freedom, like a man who holds onto his independence when he retains his own way of thinking. Language is the thought of a people.”

“Vice pays for its own freedom.”

“Our liberty will not be secured at the sword's point... We must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when the people reaches that height, God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards, and liberty will shine out like the first dawn.”