Genealogy Quotes

• History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all.

  Laurence Overmire

  Humanity, Historical, Remember

  58 Copy quote

• If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Family, Honor, Important

  103 Copy quote

• If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.

  Michael Crichton

  Life, Family, History

  14 Copy quote

• Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponent will do it for you.

  Mark Twain

  Hilarious, Tree, Opponents

  435 Copy quote

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

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Family, Dance

  60 Copy quote

• In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are and where we came from.

  Alex Haley

  Heritage, Who We Are, Lineage

  Alex Haley (2007). “Alex Haley: The Man Who Traced America's Roots”, Reader's Digest Association

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• The past could be jettisoned . . . but seeds got carried.

  Joan Didion

  Past, Seeds

  8 Copy quote

• 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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• Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future.

  Gail Buckley

  Family, Past, Mirrors

  "Books of the Times" by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, www.nytimes.com. 1986.

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• 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

  28 Copy quote

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• Read the genealogy of Jesus, and you have to see how the four women in that genealogy God used their sins for His glory.

  Rick Warren

  Jesus, Four, Sin

  "Rick Warren Clarifies Doctrine, Purpose Driven Life with John Piper". Interview with John Piper, www.christianpost.com. May 28, 2011.

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• Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Family, Men, Care

  8 Copy quote

• I looked up my family tree and found out I was the sap.

  Rodney Dangerfield

  Funny, Family, Witty

  105 Copy quote

• People who lose children have their hearts warped into weird shapes. Some try to deny it has happened. Some pretend it hasn't. Losing friends or parents is not the same. To lose a child is beyond comprehension. It defies biology. It contradicts the natural order of history and genealogy. It derails common sense. It violates time. It creates a huge, black, bottomless hole that swallows all hope.

  Michael Robotham

  Children, Heart, Order

  "Bleed for Me (Joseph O'Loughlin)". Book by Michael Robotham, 2010.

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  Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.

  Wernher von Braun

  Wisdom, Witty, Humorous

  "Work, Society, and Culture". The New York Times, December 16, 1957.

  185 Copy quote

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• In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.

  Alex Haley

  Loneliness, Adoption, Vacuums

  Alex Haley (2007). “Alex Haley: The Man Who Traced America's Roots”, Reader's Digest Association

  74 Copy quote

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• We are the children of many sires, and every drop of blood in us in its turn betrays its ancestor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Blood, Ancestor

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.240, Harvard University Press

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• I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap.

  Fred Allen

  Funny, Family, Witty

  Fred Allen (2008). “Much Ado About Me”, p.200, Wildside Press LLC

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• The advent of the Christian God, as the maximum god attained so far, was therefore accompanied by the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness on earth.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Christian, Feelings, Earth

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.526, Modern Library

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• Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.

  Daniel Dennett

  Evolution, Language, Easier

  "Daniel Dennett: 'I don't like theory of mind' - interview". Interview With Carole Jahme, www.theguardian.com. March 22, 2013.

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• The past is not dead - it isn't even past

  Christa Wolf

  Inspirational, Past, Family History

  14 Copy quote

• Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them weren't even mammals.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Perfect, Gentleman, Majority

  "Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati". Book by Robert Anton Wilson, p. 84, 1977.

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• A family reunion is an effective form of birth control.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Birth Control, Family Reunion, Form

  13 Copy quote

• Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.

  Sydney J. Harris

  People, Preoccupation

  7 Copy quote