Ancestry Quotes - Page 3

• The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the hauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable only because they are old; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream would see nothing but the impurity of the source.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pride, Foundation, Titles

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• I have no urns, no dusty monuments;
  No broken images of ancestors,
  Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales
  Of long descents, to boast false honors from.

  Ben Jonson

  Long, Broken, Honor

  Ben Jonson, Felix Emmanuel Schelling (1966). “The Complete Plays: The alchemist. Catline, his conspiracy. Bartholomew Fair. The devil is an ass. The staple of news. The new inn; or, The light heart. The magnetic lady; or, Humours reconciled. A tale of a tub. The sad shepard; or, A tale of Robin Hood. The case is altered. Glossary”

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• Men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels, rather than elevated apes.

  William Winwood Reade

  Believe, Angel, Men

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.395

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• Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.

  Voltaire

  Positive Thinking, Goal, Needs

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• Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kindness, Independence, Unions

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.350, Modern Library

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• There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their fathers came down in the world through their own follies than to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry and talents. It is the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same vanity of birth which makes men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels rather than elevated apes.

  William Winwood Reade

  Father, Believe, Angel

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.395

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• If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Family, Dance

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• Great families of yesterday we show, And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.

  Daniel Defoe

  Yesterday, Parent, Lord

  'The True-Born Englishman' (1701) pt. 1, l. 374

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• I didn't know much about my Native American ancestry, but as I got older I became more interested in it.

  Alan Robinson

  Native American, Knows, Native

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• Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Love, Hate, Liberty

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.4481, e-artnow

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• High birth is an accident, not a virtue.

  Pietro Metastasio

  Birth, Virtue, Ancestor

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• Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Good Man, Titles

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1804). “The Guardian”, p.178

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• Indeed, it may be laid down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient days those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of this land.

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Humorous, Mean

  Charles Dickens “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”

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• Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

  Voltaire

  Country, Uprising, Needs

  "Mérope". Play by Voltaire. Act I, Scene III, 1743.

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• My forefathers didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat.

  Will Rogers

  Native American, Boat, Mets

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• Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Signals, Breeding, Mark

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.139, Reprint Services Corporation

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• By ancestry, I was born to rule.

  Nelson Mandela

  Born

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.218, Pan Macmillan

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• None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The record does not show that Adam and Eve were ever married.

  E. W. Howe

  Funny, Doe, Records

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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 the most to the perpetuation of society itself.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Interesting, Politics

  Edmund Burke (2014). “Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace”, p.52, Cambridge University Press

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• Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Heirlooms, Forests

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.221, Penguin

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• Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.

  Ovid

  Birth

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• He who boasts of his descent, praises the deed of another.

  Seneca the Younger

  Family, Deeds, Praise

  "The Madness of Hercules". Book by Seneca the Younger, circa 54 AD.

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• I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Fathers Day, Future

  Abraham Lincoln (1982). “Abraham Lincoln, wisdom & wit”, Peter Pauper Pr

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• People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspirational, Family, Memories

  Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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• It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.

  Plutarch

  Family, Glory, Ancestor

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.12

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