Carlos P Romulo Quotes

I was convinced that luck was a matter of knowing what one wanted and then being willing to work to make the wish come true.

I am a Filipino born to freedom, and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added unto my inheritance—for myself and my children and my children’s children—forever.

For my grandchildren . . . and all children—this book is written with hopes of the time to come, when no child shall lie down in terror or waken to hunger, but shall know himself as a being of unique value in a safer and kindlier world.

I am a Filipino, inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. As such, I must prove equal to a two-fold task -- the task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the future.

Brotherhood is the very price and condition of man’s survival. —Carlos P. Romulo

From this time on, my life would be written in headlines, but I am not concerned with them. It was the marginal notations of the heart that were most important to the man within.

This proved to me that no matter how diametrically opposed your views may be from another's if you can succeed in knowing him as a human being you can understand each other.

The presidency of the United Nations was not thrust upon me overnight. I had to grow up to the measurements it demanded of a proponent of peace. This was done session by session, step by step. It entailed trips halfway around the world, again and again. It demanded nights without sleep, studying, writing, poring over documents; days without rest; and always the curb on the temper and the willingness to give and to receive.

You might wonder that I who who have served you in the field of diplomacy should set so much store by the power of nationalism. This is because I know from personal experience that in order to become an effective internationalist, one must strive to be a good nationalist. To be a worthy citizen of the world one must first prove himself to be a good Filipino.

One need not bellow to be believed. Ears seal automatically against anger, and unreason takes over when an argument becomes a tirade.

Don Alejandro cut in with advice I have never forgotten. "It is only when a man knows reason is not on his side that he uses his fists.

I knew nothing at all of the art of diplomacy, which I have since diagnosed as the ability to make the nastiest possible comment in the nicest possible way.

Agreements in the organizations of world power are never reached on the floor. They are made in the delegates' lounge and corridors long before the voting begins.

OTHER lives may find their happiest moments infiltrated with tragedy, and their proudest touched with comedy. This had almost invariably been true of mine. My proudest hour found me, the newly elected president of the United Nations, perched atop three thick New York City telephone books given me in lieu of a cushion that I might see and be seen by the delegates below the podium.

Mine was a good race. Ours was a good country. I loved every foot of it that I knew...I had been reared in a wonderful country among wonderful people and I wanted all the rest of the world to know and respect the Philippines.

For freedom would not be easy. It never is. It would be more difficult for the Philippines than for many countries, because we had to face the fact that the islands, although potentially rich, had not tapped their resources. We were a poor country and a small one, and we could not afford to be hurled unprepared into competition with countries larger and richer and more powerful and far better trained. The Tydings-McDuffie Act means we could prepare.

To do my best, to increase and never lessen my country's pride was the underlying motivation of all I might attempt. ... I had to be outstanding, to make the greatest effort to win, to prove I was capable not in spite of having been born Filipino but because I was a Filipino.

Pierre J. Huss pleased me with his comment: "Thanks to him (Romulo) the United Nations has 'independence' in its Charter, one of the most important contributions for the evolution of humanity to dignity and freedom.

A successful ambassador has to bring the bacon home without spilling the beans.