Ancestry Quotes

• There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

  Helen Keller

  Life, Kings, Diversity

  Helen Keller (2012). “The Story of My Life”, p.5, Courier Corporation

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• We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Memories, Blood, Language

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• In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Men, Eight

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.5, Harvard University Press

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• It is worthwhile for anyone to have behind him a few generations of honest, hard-working ancestry.

  John Phillips

  Hard Work, Generations, Honest

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• The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Life, Success, World

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• Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.

  Seneca the Younger

  Descent, Brag, Boast

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Xenophobia, Patriotic, Usa

  Remarks before Daughters of the American Revolution Convention, Washington, D.C., 21 Apr. 1938. Often paraphrased as Roosevelt's addressing the DAR as "my fellow immigrants."

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• Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Family, Self Esteem, Heredity

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

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• Heredity is nothing but stored environment.

  Luther Burbank

  Heredity And Environment, Definitions, Ancestor

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• There's so many people who move around our country and lose track of their own ancestry. It's nice to know where you come from.

  Garrison Keillor

  Country, Nice, Moving

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• Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Men, Ancestor, Every Man

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• No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.

  Seneca the Elder

  Birth, Born, Disposition

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• People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Pride, People, Achievement

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• Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Memories, Tree, Ancestor

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2016). “Memories and Portraits: Stevenson's Vol. 21”, p.36, VM eBooks

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• Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Thinking, Littles

  Notebook, 1899

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• Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolite.

  Edmund Burke

  Unjust, Birth, Preference

  "Reflections on the Revolution in France". Political pamphlet by Edmund Burke, November 1790.

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• In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.

  Jonathan Swift

  Jobs, Cutting, Should Have

  'Verses on the Upright Judge'

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• Character is better than ancestry, and personal conduct is more important than the highest parentage.

  Thomas John Barnardo

  Christian, Character, Important

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• I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule.

  W. S. Gilbert

  Facts, Descent, Ancestor

  W. S. Gilbert, Ian C. Bradley (2016). “The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan”, p.637, Oxford University Press

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• Of what use are pedigrees, or to be thought of noble blood, or the display of family portraits, O Ponticus?

  Juvenal

  Blood, Portraits, Noble

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 23-25, Satires, VIII, line 1, 1922.

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• If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry - yours and mine - back to the first blob of life-like material that came into being on the planet.

  Clifford D. Simak

  Mean, Firsts, Planets

  "Speaking of Science Fiction". Book by Paul Walker, 1978.

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• Few sons attain the praise Of their great sires and most their sires disgrace.

  Homer

  Son, Childhood, Praise

  Homer (1872). “The Iliad ...”, p.326

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• Maybe if I go far enough back into my ancestry, I have African roots or something. I've got no idea

  Mick Taylor

  Ideas, Roots, Enough

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• They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy.

  James Russell Lowell

  Thinking, Blood, Mountain

  James Russell Lowell (1896). “The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell”

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• 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 most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission.

  Edmund Burke

  Interesting, Weakness, Wealth

  Edmund Burke (1912). “Reflections on the French Revolution”, p.51, CUP Archive

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