There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
The brave are born from the brave and good. In steers and in horses is to be found the excellence of their sire; nor do savage eagles produce a peaceful dove.
It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house! alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one.
Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.
None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The record does not show that Adam and Eve were ever married.
Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.
He who boasts of his descent, praises the deed of another.
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.
I wasn't trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people.
Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name.
Breed is stronger than pasture.
I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap.
When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.
Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.
The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato. The best part is underground.
We are all creatures of our ancestry! There is no right and wrong, objectively.
And, you know, the fact is, if you believe in evolution, we all have a common ancestor, and we all have a common ancestry with the plant in the lobby. This is what evolution tells us. And, it's true. It's kind of unbelievable.
Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.
When real nobleness accompanies that imaginary one of birth, the imaginary seems to mix with real, and becomes real too.
Pedigree and ancestry and what we ourselves have not achieved, I scarcely recognize as our own.
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