Hereditary Quotes - Page 3

• How superbly brave is the Englishman in the presence of the awfulest forms of danger and death; and how abject in the presence of any and all forms of hereditary rank.

  Mark Twain

  Brave, Danger, Form

  Mark Twain (194?). “Mark Twain's notebook”

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• There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not at the level of the human frailties of particular monarchs or presidents. No one seriously contends that the American presidency should be abolished because Bill Clinton is a self-confessed adulterer. So why should the abolition of the British monarchy be contemplated because the same is true of Prince Charles?

  David Cannadine

  Self, Important, President

  David Cannadine (1998). “History in Our Time”, Penguin Group USA

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• These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.

  Aristotle

  Kings, Government, Law

  Aristotle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)”, p.3028, Delphi Classics

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• Terrible as is war, it yet displays the spiritual grandeur of man daring to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy--death.

  Heinrich Heine

  Spiritual, War, Men

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• The most successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the superiority either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wall, Military, Successful

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V2: the History Focus”, p.354, 谷月社

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• If Julian had flattered himself that his personal connexion with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians.

  Edward Gibbon

  Character, People, History

  Edward Gibbon, William Smith (1857). “The Student's Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.174

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• There is a strong conservative instinct in the average man or woman, born of the hereditary fear of life, that prompts them to cling to old standards, or, if too intelligent to look inhospitably upon progress, to move very slowly. Both types are the brakes and wheelhorses necessary to a stable civilization, but history, even current history in the newspapers, would be dull reading if there were no adventurous spirits willing to do battle for new ideas.

  Gertrude Atherton

  Strong, Reading, Moving

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• Virtue is not hereditary.

  Thomas Paine

  Virtue

  Thomas Paine (2016). “COMMON SENSE (Political Classics Series): Advocating Independence to People in the Thirteen Colonies - Addressed to the Inhabitants of America”, p.34, e-artnow

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• Every man has a House of Lords in his own head. Fears, prejudices, misconceptions - those are the peers and they are hereditary.

  David Lloyd George

  Men, House, Prejudice

  1927 Speech, Cambridge.

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• Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.

  Jonathan Swift

  Ambition, Government, Sacred

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• We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy,or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.

  Mark Twain

  Daughter, America, Envy

  Mark Twain (2010). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.80, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• [I]n Great-Britain it is said that their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom; whichwould be a rational reliance if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Honesty, Government, House

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• [The Republican Party] consists of those who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves and hating hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of men, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community.

  James Madison

  Hate, Party, Believe

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.482

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• If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.

  John Adams

  Kings, Men, Voice

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I”, p.90, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The major cause for American Negroes intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and thus not remedial to a major degree by improvement in environment.

  William Shockley

  Race, Intellectual, Degrees

  "NRA Leader Once Worked for Professor Who Claimed Blacks Were Genetically Inferior" by David Corn and Pema Levy, www.motherjones.com. May 1, 2018.

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• If a man brings a good mind to what he reads he may become, as it were, the spiritual descendant to some extent of great men, and this link, this spiritual hereditary tie, may help to just kick the beam in the right direction at a vital crisis; or may keep him from drifting through the long slack times when, so to speak, we are only fielding and no balls are coming our way.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Spiritual, Men, Ties

  Rudyard Kipling (2015). “The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated): 5 Novels & 440+ Short Stories, Complete Poetry, Historical Military Works and Autobiographical Writings (Kim, The Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King, Land and Sea Tales, Captain Courageous…)”, p.7206, e-artnow

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• We're children of God through our blood kinship with Christ. We're also sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, with a hereditary craving for forbidden fruit salad.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Daughter, Children, Son

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• Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you. I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

  Isaac Asimov

  Children, Parent, Fertility

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• I do think that the legacy of the Norman conquest is still strong in Britain. Our hereditary monarchy, our established church, our ancient county structures, though hollowed out in many ways, are a direct result of what happened in 1066.

  Paul Kingsnorth

  Strong, Thinking, Church

  Source: therumpus.net

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• An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Aristocracy, World

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.63

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• My love of singing is hereditary.

  Susan Boyle

  Singing

  Source: www.mirror.co.uk

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• I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.

  William Ellery Channing

  Angel, Men, Rights

  William Ellery Channing (1835). “The works of Wm. Ellery Channing ...”, p.259

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• Politics I take to be the activity of attending to the general arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice have brought together. In this sense, families, clubs, and learned societies have their 'politics'. But the communities in which this manner of activities is pre-eminent are the hereditary co-operative groups, many of them of ancient lineage, all of them aware of a past, a present and a future, which we call states.

  Michael Joseph Oakeshott

  Past, People, Community

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• Certainly, it includes that. I want the story to be interpreted in as many ways as possible, and of course, the bad blood aspect of it included. For instance, perhaps this is a story not about the hereditary nature of evil, but rather you could interpret it from a different perspective, too.

  Park Chan-wook

  Blood, Evil, Perspective

  "Park Chan-wook, Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode Talk STOKER, First Impressions to the Script, Reactions to the Completed Film and More". Interview with Sheila Roberts, collider.com. February 24, 2013.

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• Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.

  William Godwin

  Reality, Wealth, Premium

  William Godwin (1793). “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness”, p.804

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