“My countrymen: we have reached a turning point in our history. The cho...” — Ferdinand Marcos Quote

“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.”

“Filipinos are not worse than any other colonized people except that our colonization was a little longer, and the independence movement was always dictated in political terms, never in social ones. We borrowed terms, but we didn't understand them.”

“The permissiveness of society must be balanced with authoritativeness.”

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

“We do not postpone the participation of the lower classes of our people in the profits of economic enterprise, and in other countries, they do postpone it. In the long run, I think our policy is better, and we stand by it.”

“My friends in the opposition have forgotten that the constitution of the Philippines was amended in 1973 with their participation. The constitution mandates the administration, including the Batasan, or legislature, to convert slowly into a semiparliamentary form of government. The president in such a situation can issue decrees and edicts.”

“An attempt is already underway to revise history - to leave the impression that the former president had nothing to do with Watergate. But there is no doubt about his obstruction of justice after the Watergate break-in.”

“I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.”

“Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

“Here I am at the turn of the millennium and I'm still the last man to have walked on the moon, somewhat disappointing. It says more about what we have not done than about what we have done.”

“I start with the history, and I ask myself, 'What are the great turning points? What are the big dramatic scenes that are essential to telling the story?'”