"...This nation can be great again. It is my article of faith, and Divine Providence has willed that you and I can now translate this faith into action. We must renew the vision of greatness for our country. We must awaken the hero inherent in every man. We must find the secret chords which turn ordinary man into heroes, mediocre fighters into champions. And I ask not for one hero among you but for many. In fact, I ask for all of you to be heroes of our nation. Offering our efforts to our Creator, we must drive ourselves to be great again."

- Ferdinand Marcos

"We shall pour out our blood in a great flood to liberate the parent sod; but till that day arrives for which we weep, love shall be mute, desire shall sleep."

- Excerpt from an undated kundiman attributed to Jose Rizal

"I left her!...My native hearth,
a tree despoiled and shriveled,
no longer repeats the echo
of my old songs of mirth.
I sailed across the vast ocean
craving to change my fate,
not noting in my madness
that instead of the weal I sought,
the sea around me wrought
the spectre of death and sadness."

- Excerpt from a poem by Jose Rizal entitled "They Ask Me for Verses", 1882

"We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars" - Oscar Wilde

"Touch your employees by sharing your heart and making a difference in that person's life. I still pay the family of a deceased employee pension  even after his children have grown up."

- Mr Kartar Singh Thakral, Chairman of Thakral Group

"We have a policy in our company: When someone makes a major mistake, I will invite him to my office the next morning for some champagne, and thank him for making that mistake so that everyone can learn from it."

- Lord John Bittleston, Business mentor, career coach & Founder of Terrificmentors.com

"There is freedom of speech in Singapore, just no freedom after speech."

- Quak Hiang Whai, veteran journalist & former Business Times News Editor

"A crisis provides a rare opportunity for companies to showcase their professionalism, resilience and management skills."

- Quak Hiang Whai, veteran journalist & former Business Times News Editor

"When there is a multiplicity of suns, the gravitational pull of each is not only weakened but also by a judicious use of the pulls and counter-pulls of gravitational forces, the minor planets have a greater freedom of navigation."

- Mr S. Rajaratnam, Singapore's first Foreign Minister, 1985

"In foreign policy, you must identity real choices, then select and act decisively. You must not allow false sentiment to cloud the issues. Moralistic hysterics is fatal, paralysing. You must be aware of your limitations - not limitations of lack of will, paralysis of will. Real politics versus morality is what countries have faced through the ages. You must seek a practical balance between the two...world affairs manifest a complexity which only the idiot will reduce to simple moral aphorisms..."

- Mr S. Rajaratnam, Singapore's first Foreign Minister, 1985

"For us, a sound foreign policy is one which ensures a maximum of friends and a minimum of enemies."

- Mr S. Rajaratnam, Singapore's first Foreign Minister, 1985

"If you do up the plus and minuses, you will find that life is better in Singapore. You may not appreciate the Government more but at least, we hope that you will appreciate Singapore more."

- Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum 2010

"When the spotlight is on you, people have high expectations. Even if you do reasonably well, but not astonishingly well, some people will still think you are a failure."

- Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum 2010

"We will always be an immigrant society and that will always be a part of our DNA. We can shut out the flow of immigrants, but we will lose our DNA"

- Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum 2010