El fili

I. Political

Chapter 13

1. This government, which, according to you, is vacillating and weak, should be strengthened by our
confidence, that we may make it see that it is the custodian of our hopes. Let us remind it by our
conduct (should it ever forget itself, which I do not believe can happen) that we have faith in its
good intentions and that it should be guided by no other standard than justice and the welfare of
all the governed.

Chapter 14

2. "The Spanish government," he said among other things, "has given you everything, it has denied
you nothing!

Chapter 15

3. "I should think that governments, the more they are threatened, would be all the more careful to
seek bases that are impregnable. The basis of prestige for colonial governments is the weakest
of all, since it does not depend upon themselves but upon the consent of the governed, while the
latter are willing to recognize it. The basis of justice or reason would seem to be the most
durable."
4. "Governments are established for the welfare of the peoples, and in order to accomplish this
purpose properly they have to follow the suggestions of the citizens, who are the ones best
qualified to understand their own needs."
5. "The government has given us things that we have not asked for, and that we could not ask for,
because to askto ask, presupposes that it is in some way incompetent and consequently is not
performing its functions. To suggest to it a course of action, to try to guide it, when not really
antagonizing it, is to presuppose that it is capable of erring, and as I have already said to you
such suppositions are menaces
6. The government, in my humble opinion, is not an omniscient being that can see and anticipate
everything, and even if it could, it ought not to feel offended, for here you have the church itself
doing nothing but asking and begging of God, who sees and knows everything, and you yourself
ask and demand many things in the courts of this same government, yet neither God nor the
courts have yet taken offense. Every one realizes that the government, being the human
institution that it is, needs the support of all the people, it needs to be made to see and feel the
reality of things

Chapter 27

7. The government commands, and he who commands, commands,and must be obeyed!"

8. To make a people criminal, there's nothing more needed than to doubt its virtue.
9. Enact a law, not only here, but even in Spain, and you will see how the means of
evading it will be sought, and this is for the very reason that the legislators have
overlooked the fact that the more an object is hidden, the more a sight of it is desired.

Chapter 31
 10. To govern is to act in this way, my dear sir, as it is often expedient to sacrifice the welfare
of one to the welfare of many.
Chapter 39

11. An immoral government presupposes a demoralized people, a conscienceless administration, greedy and
servile citizens in the settled parts, outlaws and brigands in the mountains. Like master, like slave! Like
government, like country!"
12.

II. Economical

Chapter 16

1. "Study how other nations prosper, and then do as they do."

2. Simoun smiled, for when a Chinese merchant complains it is because all is going well, and when
he makes a show that things are booming it is quite certain that he is planning an assignment or
flight to his own country.
3. "Me, money back? Ah, surely you don't understand! When it's lost in gambling they never pay..

III. Socio-cultural

a. religion

chapter 39

1. "God will forgive you, SeorSimoun," he said. "He knows that we are fallible, He has seen that
you have suffered, and in ordaining that the chastisement for your faults should come as death
from the very ones you have instigated to crime, we can see His infinite mercy. He has frustrated
your plans one by one, the best conceived, first by the death of Maria Clara, then by a lack of
preparation, then in some mysterious way. Let us bow to His will and render Him thanks!"
2. I know that He has not abandoned those peoples who in their supreme moments have trusted in Him and
made Him the Judge of their cause, I know that His arm has never failed when, justice long trampled upon
and every recourse gone, the oppressed have taken up the sword to fight for home and wife and children,
for their inalienable rights, which, as the German poet says, shine ever there above, unextinguished and
inextinguishable, like the eternal stars themselves. No, God is justice, He cannot abandon His cause, the
cause of liberty, without which no justice is possible."
3. "A very just God, Seor Simoun," replied the priest. "A God who chastises our lack of faith, our vices, the
little esteem in which we hold dignity and the civic virtues. We tolerate vice, we make ourselves its
accomplices, at times we applaud it, and it is just, very just that we suffer the consequences, that our
children suffer them.

b. ethics

Chapter 15

1. Always remember that charity begins at home, for man ought not to seek on earth more than the
greatest amount of happiness for himself, as Bentham says.

Chapter 13
 2. he who is thus faithless to the trust reposed in him and abuses his unlimited authority deserves
neither the protection of the fatherland nor the support of any Spanish citizen!"

Chapter 27

3. "Begin by reforming yourselves, you who have need of change, and we will follow."
Chapter 31

4. A people tyrannized over is forced to be hypocritical; a people denied the truth must
resort to lies; and he who makes himself a tyrant breeds slaves. There is no morality,
you say, so let it beeven though statistics can refute you in that here are not
committed crimes like those among other peoples, blinded by the fumes of their
moralizers.
5. There are no distinctions, there are no exceptions, nothing but a fact, a right, an aggression, and every honest man who
does not place himself on the side of the wronged makes himself an accomplice and stains his conscience.

Chapter 39

6. "The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin. You have believed that what
crime and iniquity have defiled and deformed, another crime and another iniquity can purify and redeem.
Wrong! Hate never produces anything but monsters and crime criminals! Love alone realizes wonderful
works, virtue alone can save! No, if our country has ever to be free, it will not be through vice and crime, it
will not be so by corrupting its sons, deceiving some and bribing others, no! Redemption presupposes virtue,
virtue sacrifice, and sacrifice love!"
7. "The just and the worthy must suffer in order that their ideas may be known and extended! You must shake
or shatter the vase to spread its perfume, you must smite the rock to get the spark! There is something
providential in the persecutions of tyrants, Seor Simoun!"
8. "Our ills we owe to ourselves alone, so let us blame no one.
9. Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to
be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.
10. "Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours, their illusions, and their enthusiasm to the
welfare of their native land? Where are the youth who will generously pour out their blood to wash away so
much shame, so much crime, so much abomination? Pure and spotless must the victim be that the sacrifice
may be acceptable! Where are you, youth, who will embody in yourselves the vigor of life that has left our
veins, the purity of ideas that has been contaminated in our brains, the fire of enthusiasm that has been
quenched in our hearts? We await you, O youth! Come, for we await you!"

c. education

chapter 6

1. One goes to college, not to learn and study, but to gain credit for the course, so if the
book can be memorized, what more can be askedthe year is thus gained."

Chapter 7

2. "Science is more eternal, it's more human, it's more universal!" exclaimed the youth in a
transport of enthusiasm. "Within a few centuries, when humanity has become redeemed
and enlightened, when there are no races, when all peoples are free, when there are
neither tyrants nor slaves, colonies nor mother countries, when justice rules and man is a
citizen of the world, the pursuit of science alone will remain, the word patriotism will be
equivalent to fanaticism, and he who prides himself on patriotic ideas will doubtless be
isolated as a dangerous disease, as a menace to the social order."
Chapter 11

3. "he who wishes to teach, teaches everywhere, in the open air. Socrates taught in the public
streets, Plato in the gardens of the Academy, even Christ among the mountains and lakes."

Chapter 13

4. He who wishes to learn, will learn, academies or no academies!

5. The University has to accommodate itself to the needs of the students

Chapter 15

6. Believe me, he who wishes to learn, learns and becomes wise!"

Chapter 27

7. Liberty is to man what education is to the intelligence

8. "Instruction is given only to those who deserve it," rejoined Padre Fernandez dryly. "To give it to men without character
and without morality is to prostitute it."
9. "the students would desist from their attitude and soften certain asperities if the
professors would try to treat them better than they have up to the present. That is in their
hands."
10. "When the students demonstrate that they love it, when young men of conviction appear,
young men who know how to maintain their dignity and make it respected, then there will
be knowledge, then there will be considerate professors! If there are now professors who
resort to abuse, it is because there are pupils who submit to it."
11. "When there are professors, there will be students!"

d. science and technology

Chapter 16

1. "But, listen to me and I'll convince you. It's all a question of optics. I haven't yet seen the head nor
do I know how it looks, but this gentleman"indicating Juanito Pelaez"tells us that it does not
look like the talking heads that are usually exhibited. So be it! But the principle is the sameit's
all a question of optics. Wait! A mirror is placed thus, another mirror behind it, the image is
reflectedI say, it is purely a problem in physics."

Chapter 20

2. To keep the Filipino docile, he must have repeated to him day after day what he is, to convince
him that he is incompetent. What good would it do, besides, to have him believe in something
else that would make him wretched? Believe me, it's an act of charity to hold every creature in his
placethat is order, harmony. That constitutes the science of government."

Chapter 39

3. "But an antidote, Seor Simoun! I have ether, chloroform"

4.
Role of women

Chapter 32

1. the female surrenders herself to the fittest male,

2.

El fili

"only in this way are great enterprises carried out with small meanspg 4 chpter1
but as I've been assured that nearly all the money is in the hands of the native priests, I said to
myself: the friars are dying for curacies and the Franciscans are satisfied with the poorest, so
when they give them up to the native priests the truth must be that the king's profile is unknown
there pg4chapter2
"that water is very mild and can be drunk, but that it drowns out the wine and beer and puts out
the fire, that heated it becomes steam, and that ruffled it is the ocean, that it once destroyed
mankind and made the earth tremble to its foundations!"pg4 chapter2

people preserves its language, it preserves the marks of its liberty, as a man preserves his
independence while he holds to his own way of thinking. Language is the thought of the peoples.
Luckily, your independence is assured; human passions are looking out for that!"

Chapter 13

Just as the two hundred and thirty-four spent their class hours, so the thousands of students who
preceded them have spent theirs, and, if matters do not mend, so will those yet to come spend theirs, and
be brutalized, while wounded dignity and youthful enthusiasm will be converted into hatred and sloth, like
the waves that become polluted along one part of the shore and roll on one after another, each in
succession depositing a larger sediment of filth. But yet He who from eternity watches the consequences
of a deed develop like a thread through the loom of the centuries, He who weighs the value of a second
and has ordained for His creatures as an elemental law progress and development, He, if He is just, will
demand a strict accounting from those who must render it, of the millions of intelligences darkened and
blinded, of human dignity trampled upon in millions of His creatures, and of the incalculable time lost and
effort wasted! And if the teachings of the Gospel are based on truth, so also will these have to
answerthe millions and millions who do not know how to preserve the light of their intelligences and
their dignity of mind, as the master demanded an accounting from the cowardly servant for the talent that
he let be taken from him.

Chapter 27

How do they fulfill their obligation, those who look after education in the towns? By hindering it! And those who here monopolize
education, those who try to mold the mind of youth, to the exclusion of all others whomsoever, how do they carry out their mission?
By curtailing knowledge as much as possible, by extinguishing all ardor and enthusiasm, by trampling on all dignity, the soul's only
refuge, by inculcating in us worn-out ideas, rancid beliefs, false principles incompatible with a life of progress! Ah, yes, when it is a
question of feeding convicts, of providing for the maintenance of criminals, the government calls for bids in order to find the purveyor
who offers the best means of subsistence, he who at least will not let them perish from hunger, but when it is a question of morally
feeding a whole people, of nourishing the intellect of youth, the healthiest part, that which is later to be the country and the all, the
government not only does not ask for any bid, but restricts the power to that very body which makes a boast of not desiring
education, of wishing no advancement. What should we say if the purveyor for the prisons, after securing the contract by intrigue,
should then leave the prisoners to languish in want, giving them only what is stale and rancid, excusing himself afterwards by saying
that it is not convenient for the prisoners to enjoy good health, because good health brings merry thoughts, because merriment
improves the man, and the man ought not to be improved, because it is to the purveyor's interest that there be many criminals?
What should we say if afterwards the government and the purveyor should agree between themselves that of the ten or twelve
cuartos which one received for each criminal, the other should receive five?"

Ethics

Chapter 39

A praying-desk at the feet of a Christ and a scanty library led to the suspicion that it was the priest's own bedroom,
given up to his guest according to the Filipino custom of offering to the stranger the best table, the best room, and the
best bed in the house. Upon seeing the windows opened wide to admit freely the healthful sea-breeze and the
echoes of its eternal lament, no one in the Philippines would have said that a sick person was to be found there,
since it is the custom to close all the windows and stop up all the cracks just as soon as any one catches a cold or
gets an insignificant headache.

Chapter 39

*meron sa chapter 36 about sa mga journalists na ino-over ung articles nila. Diko lang mkta ung
paragraph mismo na pede ko kunin, kayo baka nkta nyo? :P