Corazon Aquino Quotes

Give until it hurts.

I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.

These days when we speak of politics at all it is with indifference, anger, or "Please, could we talk about something that doesn't make us nauseous?" But there was a time when we could discuss government with hope, pride, and trust in our leaders, and that was when Corazon Aquino was president.

I've reached a point in life where it's no longer necessary to try to impress. If they like me the way I am, that's good. If they don't, that's too bad.

You, the foreign media, have been the companion of my people in its long and painful journey to freedom.

The headline flashed from wire to wire: Marcos Flees. The revolution ended with the inauguration of Corazon Aquino. The Marcos family fled to Hawaii, granted asylum by President Reagan. The world took notice. “It is a story that cannot be told too often,” wrote Asiaweek, “and no matter how it ends this time, it is a lesson in the dynamics and wonder of democratic political leadership.” French writer Nesta Comber called it a “moment worthy of ancient Greece.” The Associated Press compared Corazon Aquino to Joan of Arc. CBS called it the closest the twentieth century had come to the storming of the Bastille. “We Americans like to think we taught the Filipinos democracy,” anchor Bob Simon reported from his New York set. “Well tonight, they are teaching the world.

— I tell this story not as a record of history but to explain the role the Edsa Revolution played in my understanding of who I was. Edsa was not my revolution, but it gave me a story grander than the dragon-slayers of my fairy tales. It was one part myth, two parts magic, peopled by giants, all thunder and power and bright yellow hope. It was that woman—smiling, kindly eyed Corazon Aquino—who stayed in my mind’s eye at the ringing of the morning bell when the national anthem crackled through the school loudspeaker. The brave wore yellow in my imagination. Here was our manifest destiny writ large—land of the morning, pearl of the East, cradle of the brave, whose people pushed back the guns of a dictator with no more than a prayer and a song.

In the year I was born, two years after the assassination, international pressure forced Ferdinand Marcos to announce he was holding presidential elections. His challenger was Ninoy Aquino’s widow, a soft-spoken housewife who wore big glasses and yellow dresses. Her name, Corazon, means “heart.” The country called her Cory.