Ferdinand Marcos

My countrymen: we have reached a turning point in our history. The choice is yours. Shall we venture into this brave new world, bright with possibilities, or retreat to the safety of our familiar but sterile past? I am for crossing the frontier.

To write our constitution is for the past, the present, and the future to come together all at once in one single motion, in one single heave, one single cry. For we correct the errors of the past and chart a new course for the future, based on the experience of the present.

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

I often wonder what I will be remembered in history for. Scholar? Military hero? Builder?

We have no quarrel with a policy that seeks to support human rights.

The challenge to America is to extend to Asia the defensive shield of American power in forms consonant with Asian freedom and self-respect.

Nobody is impervious to misfortune.

The challenge to Asia is to discard the dry, meatless bone of mysticism and fatalism.

How can I wage political battle against a widow who does not mean anyone any harm except only the president himself?

America must realize, there are conditions she must accept in Asia. The first is a diversity of Asian cultures, governments, economic and political systems; the second, that to run against the tide of Asian nationalism is worse than impractical - it is also highly dangerous.

Freedom is not just declared; it is exercised.

Let us not be carried away by the undisguised agitations of leaders who virtually asked people to take the law into their own hands.