“When a people is 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.”

“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.”

“...genius knows no country, genius sprouts anywhere, genius is like light, air. the patrimony of everybody, cosmopolitan like space, like life, like God.”

“Countrymen: I have given proofs, as well as the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people, so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same liberty. In my writings I have recommended the study of the civic virtues, without which there can be no redemption. I have also written (and my words have been repeated) that reforms, to be fruitful, must come from above, that those which spring from below are uncertain and insecure movements. Imbued with these ideas, I cannot do less than condemn, and I do condemn, this absurd, savage rebellion, planned behind my back, which dishonors the Filipinos and discredits those who can speak for us. I abominate all criminal actions and refuse any kind of participation in them, pitying with all my heart the dupes who have allowed themselves to be deceived. Go back, then, to your homes, and may God forgive those who have acted in bad faith.”

“People believe that madness is when you don't think as they do, which is why they take me for a madman.”

“Let us not ask for miracles, let us not ask for concern with what is good for the country of him who comes as a stranger to make his fortune and leave afterwards.”

“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.”