The Filipino Mind by Pedro Gagelonia (Digital Copy)

This is a digital copy of The Filipino Mind by Pedro Gagelonia.

The Filipino Mind: A Cyclopedia of Philippine Quotations, compiled by Pedro A. Gagelonia, Ph.D., is a thematically organized anthology of quotations drawn from Filipino writers, statesmen, and thinkers, published by Manlapaz Publishing in Manila in 1962.

Gagelonia, who held a doctorate and served as professor of history at Far Eastern University, was also a Knight Commander of the Order of the Knights of Rizal — a biographical detail that gives the compilation a particular flavor: this is a book made by a man who believed in cultivating a Filipino intellectual tradition, not just documenting one.

The volume is arranged alphabetically by topic, running from “Ability” through “Rizal’s Writings” and beyond, drawing on voices from Rizal and Mabini to Magsaysay, Recto, Macapagal, and Marcos — effectively a cross-section of Filipino political and literary conscience from the revolutionary era to the early republic. The foreword, signed by Teodoro Evangelista as university president, frames the project as filling a gap: Filipinos, he writes, too often reach for foreign quotations because no Filipino reference exists. This book was the remedy.

This copy is numbered 668 and bears Gagelonia’s own signature on the copyright page, which carries a rubber-stamped warning that unsigned copies “are considered as having proceeded from an illegal source” — an unusual measure that turns the author’s autograph into both authentication and a small act of nationalist pride.