Quotes about ancestry

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

Allen, Fred A. on ancestry
6 fans of this quote   

"Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own."

Bierce, Ambrose on ancestry   

"If your descent is from heroic sires, show in your life a remnant of their fires."

Boileau, Nicholas on ancestry
5 fans of this quote   

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

Brooks, Van Wyck on ancestry   

"Heredity is nothing, but stored environment."

Burbank, Luther on ancestry
3 fans of this quote   

"The scholar without good breeding is a nitpicker; the philosopher a cynic; the soldier a brute and everyone else disagreeable."

Chesterfield, Lord on ancestry   

"Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others."

Chesterfield, Lord on ancestry
5 fans of this quote   

"Breed is stronger than pasture."

Eliot, George on ancestry   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on ancestry
5 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"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."

Gilbert, W. S. on ancestry
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Is anyone simply by birth to be applauded or punished?"

Hitopadesa on ancestry
4 fans of this quote   

"Stillness and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or at least must always work their limbs and features."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on ancestry   

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on ancestry
3 fans of this quote   

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

Howe, Edgar Watson on ancestry
3 fans of this quote   

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

Lincoln, Abraham on ancestry
10 fans of this quote   

"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."

Louis, Henry on ancestry   

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

Lowell, James Russell on ancestry   

"High birth is an accident, not a virtue."

Metastasio, Pietro on ancestry   

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

Oates, Joyce Carol on ancestry
3 fans of this quote   

"The person who has nothing to brag about but their ancestors is like a potato; the best part of them is underground."

Overbore, Sir Thomas on ancestry   

"The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses."

Ovid on ancestry   

"Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants."

Plato on ancestry   

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

Plutarch on ancestry   

"From our ancestors come our names from our virtues our honor."

Proverb on ancestry
7 fans of this quote   

"Unworthy offspring brag the most about their worthy descendants."

Proverb, Danish on ancestry   

"Mules are always boasting that their ancestors were horses."

Proverb, German on ancestry
3 fans of this quote   

"Clever father, clever daughter; clever mother, clever son."

Proverb, Russian on ancestry
5 fans of this quote   

"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."

Reade, W. Winwood on ancestry   

"My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were there to meet the boat."

Rogers, Will on ancestry   

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D. on ancestry
5 fans of this quote   

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

Seneca on ancestry   

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

Seneca on ancestry   

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

Seneca on ancestry   

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

Shaw, George Bernard on ancestry   

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis on ancestry   

"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."

Swift, Jonathan on ancestry   

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

Twain, Mark on ancestry
5 fans of this quote   

"The kind of ancestors we have had is not as important as the kind of descendants our ancestors have."

Unknown, Source on ancestry   

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

Voltaire on ancestry
6 fans of this quote