Top 100 Sionil Jose Quotes
#1. None will thank me for this, nor anyone will remember.
-Istak
F. Sionil Jose
#2. We cannot be rooted in the past forever. We must not be sentimental.
F. Sionil Jose
#3. In a world grown dark with deceit there there are many who are blinded and few who can hold up a light so that we can see the way. More important, so that we can look at ourselves, as well as others, and know how similar we are to the herd.
F. Sionil Jose
#4. The Philippines just need 100 youth to stand up for their country
F. Sionil Jose
#5. All her life, she was used to being pampered, to having everything she desired, but the things that she valued were never those that could be bought but those small tokens of truth and dogged fidelity which she, herself, could not give to anyone.
F. Sionil Jose
#6. As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create classics out of our folk arts. We can do this if we are true to our roots and strive for excellence.
F. Sionil Jose
#7. The mind can also be kind and does blot out those episodes of our existence that we can't erase in our consciousness.
F. Sionil Jose
#8. Indeed time has that ultimate capacity to render the passions of the past when recalled in the present as no more than grandiloquent gestures.
F. Sionil Jose
#9. I can imagine the writers of China, England and France, crippled and unsure of themselves when they feel that the ghosts of Confucius, Mencius, Chaucer and Shakespeare and Victor Hugo are looking over their shoulders.
F. Sionil Jose
#10. What most readers do not realize is that it takes a particular genius to write funny, to satirize.
F. Sionil Jose
#11. I wish I could be honest and true, but truth as I see it is not something abstract, a pious generality
It is justice at work, righteous, demanding, disciplined, sincere and unswerving; otherwise, it is not, it cannot be truth at all.
F. Sionil Jose
#12. I was born in an Ilokano village called Cabugawan. Most of the houses in it were roofed with thatch, pan-aw, a species of wild grass.
F. Sionil Jose
#13. Sometimes we have to lie so that we do not needlessly hurt others. The important thing is that we are honest with ourselves. That we know how to bend without breaking ourselves. -Crepusculo Lepidoptera
F. Sionil Jose
#14. Who then lives? Who then triumphs when all others have succumbed?
F. Sionil Jose
#15. If we could only learn to trust one another
Tagalogs trusting Ilokanos, Pampangos trusting Tagalogs.
-The Cripple
F. Sionil Jose
#16. You will be surprised how much punishment the human body can take, if there is enough will - or faith.
F. Sionil Jose
#17. Christianity doesn't demand that we worship our ancestors. If we don't remember our ancestors, then, in all likelihood, we cannot also recall the distant past.
F. Sionil Jose
#18. Cultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal, and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them. Values are influenced by so many factors such as geography, climate, religion, the economy and technology.
F. Sionil Jose
#19. But a nation which has people who can think, the nation already has strength. It is the mind which rules, not instinct or habit.
F. Sionil Jose
#20. The bravest are usually those whom we do not know or hear about, those anonymous men who dig the trenches, who produce the food.
F. Sionil Jose
#21. No man stops caring as long as he breathes. As long as he has a mind and memory, he will care. This is what separates us from the animals. We have feelings.
F. Sionil Jose
#22. Language as a communication tool is the primary element from which literature is created. Even in pre-literate societies, it exists as songs, riddles, or epics that are chanted.
F. Sionil Jose
#23. Our appreciation of folk art will strengthen our identities, our pride in belonging to a community. People trained in the creative use of their hands soon acquire skills, excellent craftsmanship which will be the most important measure of how well we can industrialize.
F. Sionil Jose
#24. The past could liberate or imprison - it creates a nation's character, provides the nourishment or the poison a people imbibe in their very marrow.
F. Sionil Jose
#25. Writing is a solitary profession; you are really alone when you write. Then the emotions become well shaped and distinct. But their transition into words must be done deliberately and with rigid artistry.
F. Sionil Jose
#26. How can we build trust among our own people? How can we make them confident of themselves and their countrymen so that they will not sell their souls for a few silver dollars?
-The Cripple
F. Sionil Jose
#27. I said that if I were an industrialist or entrepreneur, I would invest in agriculture-based enterprises, for there is so much that can be done in manufacturing, in food preservation.
F. Sionil Jose
#28. To fund major cultural efforts, we must not rely alone on government and foundation patronage; if the farmer can spend for beer, he can pay for good entertainment which he can understand, which he can identify with and which will fortify his spirit.
F. Sionil Jose
#29. Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.
F. Sionil Jose
#30. [Of the Bagos:] Like the Moros in the south, they are our brothers. We must recognize their belongingness to Filipinas, their willingness to fight for her.
-The Cripple
F. Sionil Jose
#31. I regret that I have not written more, shouted louder, and acted out my beliefs.
F. Sionil Jose
#33. Literature suffers because writers give their books to colleagues who will then write glowing reviews or saccharine introductions.
F. Sionil Jose
#34. In the end, religion teaches us to value truth, justice and freedom.
F. Sionil Jose
#35. I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory.
F. Sionil Jose
#36. A weak people and its equally debilitated leaders are bludgeoned by history. It maims them into the cripples that they are meant to be.
F. Sionil Jose
#37. I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.
F. Sionil Jose
#38. We must know our own roles. We should also know the roles that others play, and the rules such roles follow. In this manner, social harmony is maintained. It is when we overstep our roles, or act without knowing them, that social anarchy ensues.
F. Sionil Jose
#39. I find it always pleasurable talking with young people, particularly those aspiring to be writers, out of nostalgia, and because I've always felt that we oldies can learn so much from them and draw from them inspiration in our flagging and rickety years.
F. Sionil Jose
#40. Poetry, fiction as novels or short stories - these are autonomous as created by their authors. They should stand on their own, like pieces of furniture that should be judged as to their usefulness, elegance.
F. Sionil Jose
#41. The literary depiction of life and its moral dilemmas compel us to use our conscience, to make those infallible distinctions between right and wrong.
F. Sionil Jose
#42. When I wake up every morning, I thank God for the new day.
F. Sionil Jose
#43. In the '50s, I was traveling alone all over Mindanao, Basilan, all the way to Tawi-Tawi with just a camera and a notebook. I always stayed in the houses of Moros.
F. Sionil Jose
#44. Japan is very cosmopolitan - it values its origins, but a world view hovers above this narrow perspective. The interest of the Japanese in their folk culture is transcendental.
F. Sionil Jose
#45. The Japanese bureaucracy is unique. It is also very powerful, although it is now the object of so much criticism. Many of Japan's brightest made it a pillar of strength and continuity.
F. Sionil Jose
#46. To THOSE who want to lift this nation from the dungheap of history, the past does not matter - only the present, the awareness of the deadening rot which surrounds and suffocates us, and what we must do to vanquish it.
F. Sionil Jose
#47. I was a senior high school student at the Far Eastern University when the war with Japan broke out in 1941.
F. Sionil Jose
#48. But all men die
as anonymously as they had lived, no matter what their achievements.
-Istak
F. Sionil Jose
#49. Poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief - everything that is human. It is not for zombies by zombies.
F. Sionil Jose
#50. Absences can also make one forget. Absence dulls the memory and banishes those who are precious from the mind.
F. Sionil Jose
#51. A revolution does not have to eat its children. In fact, it is those who are in power who could very well initiate revolutions. Let us not be old-fashioned and think only of armed uprisings of minorities as revolutions. Any movement that seeks to overhaul established attitudes is a revolution.
F. Sionil Jose
#52. Of course, we are all egoists. Egoism is so much a part of our humanity.
F. Sionil Jose
#53. Ninoy Aquino was a friend; I knew his faults, which were outweighed by his virtues.
F. Sionil Jose
#54. The Japanese covet important symbols - their heroic past as enshrined in Yasukuni, the Imperial family which has never been sullied by scandal.
F. Sionil Jose
#55. For them who delay aging, who infuse decrepit bodies with youth and beauty - they must rejoice in the fullness of their deeds.
F. Sionil Jose
#56. At 86, I can easily look back to the last eight decades. Though memory often fails me now, so many images of the past are still clearly polished, and I can yet recall not just an abiding sense of place, but the keen smells, the sensory responses to the events of that past.
F. Sionil Jose
#57. This is the harsh truth about us: not only do Filipinos ignore books, literature - we do not understand how important the arts are - not just to those of us who work at it, but to the nation as a whole.
F. Sionil Jose
#58. Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined by birth.
F. Sionil Jose
#59. I write to please myself - of course, that is a given. But beyond this reach for pleasure, I know that I write for my countrymen, that they may be lifted from apathy and ignorance. I write because of a compulsion to make something out of the nothing that is my own life.
F. Sionil Jose
#60. My wife and I often visit Rosales and the Ilokos as a matter of habit or whim induced by nostalgia, homesickness - whatever draws pilgrims to worshipped sanctuaries. Or, perhaps, what compels moths to seek the votive flame.
F. Sionil Jose
#61. I have been blinded, as many of us have been blinded by our needs. I had thought of only my family
this was the limit to my responsibility, and therefore, my vision.
-Istak
F. Sionil Jose
#62. But you must be sure of what you want the land for. And as for your tenants, if they don't own the land, don't expect them to make sacrifices. It never works, you know. Besides, the transition shouldn't create dislocations. It isn't easy to shift from agriculture to industry.
F. Sionil Jose
#63. If you loved someone for many years, you become instinctively aware of his feelings, even divine his thoughts and anticipate his actions, so that it would seem that you two have really become one.
F. Sionil Jose
#64. Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral.
F. Sionil Jose
#65. Industrialization starts with the formation of capital - it does not matter how. It can be created by saving, by the state enforcing its will on the people, by the very rich themselves.
F. Sionil Jose
#66. Literature - Eastern and Western - abounds with stories, myths, legends about the search for youth, for eternal life.
F. Sionil Jose
#67. I am for poetry that is admired by peasant and aristocrat alike.
F. Sionil Jose
#68. We must respect courage wherever we encounter it.
-Tom
F. Sionil Jose
#69. But when will Filipinas ever be free from its leaders who are wealthy and crooked, in whom we have put so much trust?
-The Cripple
F. Sionil Jose
#70. We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it.
F. Sionil Jose
#71. I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad that I cannot write in my native Ilokano. History demanded this; if it isn't English I am using now, I would most probably be writing in Spanish like Rizal, or even German or Japanese.
F. Sionil Jose
#72. We are shallow because we have become enslaved by gross materialism, the glitter of gold and its equivalents, for which reason we think that only the material goods of this earth can satisfy us and we must therefore grab as much as can while we are able.
F. Sionil Jose
#73. There is a great promise for our cultural growth, but this promise is achieved only when our artists recognize that all great art has nationality, an imprimatur achieved with the keenest remembrance of time and place.
F. Sionil Jose
#74. But it really all boils down to this - we don't know them, for all our sincerity, our good intentions. We don't know, because we were never one of them.
F. Sionil Jose
#75. So honesty then and service are rewarded by banishment and people sell themselves without so much ado because they have no beliefs
only a price.
F. Sionil Jose
#76. All through history, a nation or a civilization's enduring glory is articulated by its mega constructions - the pyramids, the lofty cathedrals of the Christian world.
F. Sionil Jose
#77. A virtuoso performance. Scott Thompson's biography of the soldier statesman Fidel V. Ramos illustrates the fascinating and complex geography of Filipino politics and its relation with the American hegemon. It's first-rate scholarship and equally first-rate writing.
F. Sionil Jose
#78. I can't understand Urdu, Bahasa or Russian, but when the Pakistani Faiz, the Indonesian Rendra and the Russian Rosdentvensky declaim, I can feel the living throb of rhythm and music, the warmth and passion of their poetry, as do the hundreds, not a mere roomful, of poetry lovers in the audience.
F. Sionil Jose
#79. I have always admired teachers because teaching, like the priesthood, medicine and writing, is a vocation. You don't become a teacher because you want wealth. It is the same with writing.
F. Sionil Jose
#80. My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.
F. Sionil Jose
#82. You can't have integrity for breakfast, but try and keep it because it is perhaps the single most important word that defines not just writers but all human beings.
F. Sionil Jose
#83. Was he the epitome of virtue because he was poor? How had it been in the village? There was foul gossip and cussedness anywhere in the world where small men had to think of their stomachs first before thinking about others.
-Istak
F. Sionil Jose
#84. We are shallow because we are 'mayabang,' ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.
F. Sionil Jose
#85. We read because they teach us about people, we can see ourselves in them,in their problems.And by seeing ourselves in them, we clarify ourselves, we explain ourselves to ourselves, so we can live with ourselves ...
F. Sionil Jose
#86. While violence is necessary, it is not the only instrument for change. There are others just as good. But you must accept violence- you cannot begin to build until you have destroyed. You don't know love until you have hated.
F. Sionil Jose
#87. Professional societies are sooner or later fractured by the ego of their leaders. Everyone wants to be president, chairman, CEO; no one wants to be a mere follower.
F. Sionil Jose
#88. She was benediction, a touch of faith, life itself coursing through my veins collapsed in age and turmoil, and to my fatigued and weary heart, a new and vibrant throb.
F. Sionil Jose
#89. Conquest by force is not sanctioned by God. The Americans have no right to be here. We will defeat them because we believe that this land they usurp is ours; God created it for us. The whole history of mankind has shown how faith endures while steel rusts.
-Istak
F. Sionil Jose
#90. You will find that our enemies are our own kin. It is they who betray us. So learn this most important lesson-in the end, our worst enemy is ourselves
F. Sionil Jose
#91. Ubi boni, malum prosperat (Where good men are silent, evil prospers)
F. Sionil Jose
#92. Some lucky people can be funny without half trying because they actually look funny, because acting funny is in their bones - fun as funny, not funny as crude slapstick.
F. Sionil Jose
#93. You should live in a manner that should enable you to devote time to writing and contemplation. As is often said, the writer is at work even when he is simply looking out the window.
F. Sionil Jose
#94. This was one lesson that the war taught me - that every event in time presents opportunities that are recognizable only to those with enough sensibility to see them, that it is possible to thrive in adversity in the needs of the rulers are pandered to.
F. Sionil Jose
#95. It is easy to forgive a person his faults when he is dead because in death, he atones for his sins somewhat before the eyes of people who are still living and who have yet to add more on the parchment where their sins are listed.
F. Sionil Jose
#96. It is what one really owns in the end, a name.
-Istak
F. Sionil Jose
#97. The importance not just of history, but of roots - that a writer must have then to nurture, to remember if he is to endure.
F. Sionil Jose
#98. But like my father, I have not done anything. I could not, because I am me, because I died long ago.
F. Sionil Jose
#99. Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.
F. Sionil Jose
#100. The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future. It is they who shape and enrich the minds of the young, who touch their hearts and souls. It is they who shape a nation's future.
F. Sionil Jose
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