"...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