Ancestor Quotes - Page 6

• Our cautious ancestors, when yawning, blocked the way to the entrance of evil spirits by putting their hands before their mouths. We find a reason for the gesture in the delicacy of manner which forbids an indecent exposure.

  George H. Mead

  Yawning, Hands, Evil

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• The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Honor, Deeds

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.527, Harvard University Press

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• They who derive their worth from their ancestors resemble potatoes, the most valuable part of which is underground.

  Francis Bacon

  Potatoes, Valuable

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• Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality ?

  Scott Adams

  Science, Reality, Odds

  Scott Adams (2004). “God's Debris: A Thought Experiment”, p.21, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• Confound these ancestors... They've stolen our best ideas!

  Ben Jonson

  Funny, Humor, Ideas

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• I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors as readily as any way .

  Henry David Thoreau

  Race, Tree, Stories

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.139

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• We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.

  Charles Lamb

  Reality, Theatre, Pressure

  Charles Lamb (1835). “Essays of Elia”, p.156

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• The fact is, we are much more afraid of life than our ancestors, and cannot find it inourhearts either tomarry or not tomarry.Marriage isterrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Age, Facts, Cold

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• Are we being good ancestors?

  Jonas Salk

  Be Good, Thrive

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• The changes in the human condition are uncertain and frequent. Many, on whom fortune has bestowed her favours, may trace their family to a more unprosperous station; and many who are now in obscurity, may look back upon the affluence and exalted rank of their ancestors.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Affluence, Favour, Obscurity

  Alexander Hamilton, Donald R. Hickey, Connie D. Clark (2006). “Citizen Hamilton: The Wit and Wisdom of an American Founder”, p.142, Rowman & Littlefield

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• A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Fall, Men, Hands

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.1216, Delphi Classics

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• The point is that for our ancestors, the universe was a picture; for modern physics it is a story.

  C. S. Lewis

  Stories, Physics, Modern

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.19, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Our ancestors have travelled the iron age; the golden is before us.

  Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

  Iron, Age, Experience

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• Let our posterity know that we their ancestors, uncultured and unlearned, amid all trials and temptations, were men of integrity.

  Alexander Crummell

  Integrity, Men, Temptation

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• That's our charge as ancestors of unborn generations: to once again become free.

  Russell Means

  Generations, Unborn

  Source: progressive.org

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• Not a single one of your ancestors died young. They all copulated at least once.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheism, Young, Died

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• Our ancestors ... were laborers, not lawyers.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Lawyer, Laborers

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• We must wake up to the insane reality of our time. We are all irresponsible, unless we demand from the responsible decision makers that modern armaments must no longer be made available to people whose former battle axes and swords our ancestors condemned.

  Thor Heyerdahl

  Reality, Axes, People

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• Though you be sprung in direct line from Hercules, if you show a lowborn meanness, that long succession of ancestors whom you disgrace are so many witnesses against you; and this grand display of their tarnished glory but serves to make your ignominy more evident.

  Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

  Long, Lines, Ancestry

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• Snobs talk as if they had begotten their own ancestors.

  Herbert Agar

  Snob, Ifs

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• The Righteous Salaf were as fearful of their good deeds being squandered, or not being accepted, as the present generation is certain that their neglect would be forgiven.

  Hasan of Basra

  Forgiveness, Wisdom, Islamic

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• Latinos have fought in all of America’s wars, beginning with the Revolutionary War. Many Latinos are fighting and dying for our country today in Iraq, just as several of their ancestors fought for freedom in Mexico over a century ago.

  Joe Baca

  Country, War, Fighting

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• A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Squares, Expression

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.96, Harvard University Press

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• Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Heart, Men, Clouds

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Two, Chapter II, 1840.

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• He that boasts of his ancestors confesses that he has no virtue of his own. No person ever lived for our honor; nor ought that to be reputed ours, which was long before we had a being; for what advantage can it be to a blind man to know that his parents had good eyes? Does he see one whit the better?

  Pierre Charron

  Eye, Men, Long

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