Quotes: National identity
3 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open the book that tells of her past.”
Source: Filipinas dentro de cien años (The Philippines Within a Century), opening (essay, 1889–1890) · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The idea is traceable to the opening argument of Rizal's essay “The Philippines Within a Century,” serialized 1889–1890.
- What remains uncertain
- The familiar English wording is a translation or paraphrase; the precise sentence is not securely established in the documentary record.
Rizal argued that a nation's future is best judged by studying its past: historical patterns of domination, resistance, education and economy reveal likely trajectories and choices. He frames this argument at the start of his essay The Philippines Within a Century to ground civic reform in evidence.
“The place we run toward runs toward us!”
Source: Birds of Caution, 1996 (later editions noted, e.g. 2012) · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is attributed online to Ibrahim Nasrallah and associated with Birds of Caution, but the evidence comes from reader-submitted quotation pages rather than a verified printed passage.
- What remains uncertain
- No page number, edition or primary-text citation has been located; the quotation is plausibly Nasrallah’s but not independently verified.
The line makes place active: the homeland seems to move toward the person who seeks it. Read against Nasrallah’s Birds of Caution, it reads less like a self-help axiom and more like a poetic claim about memory, exile and the pull of belonging. The syntax turns longing into a lived paradox.
“Every new social movement is initially accused of being the work of foreigners and heretics; if it succeeds and seizes power, it becomes part of religion itself and enters the record of inherited sacred things.”
Source: Wʿāẓ al‑Salāṭīn, p. 61 (1954) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is attributed to Ali al‑Wardi and appears as a passage in Wʿāẓ al‑Salāṭīn, commonly located on page 61.
- What remains uncertain
- Minor textual variants appear across editions and online transcriptions, but there is no serious evidence of another author.
Al‑Wardi warns that political success can rewrite a movement’s past: accusations of foreignness and heresy often become, after victory, framed as sacred, inherited tradition. The line appears in Wʿāẓ al‑Salāṭīn (commonly cited p. 61) and points to how power reshapes collective memory.