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Ancestry: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations
The wisdom of our ancestors.— BACON — (According to Lord
Brougham.) People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.— BURKE — Reflections on the Revolution in
France. Page 48. Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.— BURKE — Reflections on the Revolution in France-1790. Vol. III. P. 299.
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. 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.— BURKE — Reflections on the Revolution in France-1790. Vol. III. P. 298.
Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.— DANIEL DEFOE — The True-Born Englishman. Part I. L. 372.
Few sons attain the praise of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace.— HOMER — Odyssey. Bk. II. L. 315.
Pope's trans.
"My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you." IPHICRATES. See Plutarch's Morals. Apothegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Iphicrates. I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor. JUNOT, Duc d'Abrantes (when asked as to his ancestry). The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato, the only good belonging to him is under ground.— SIR THOMAS OVERBURY — Characters.
If there be no nobility of descent, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent, -a character in them that bear rule so fine and high and pure that as men come within the circle of its influence they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction, -the royalty of virtue.— BISHOP HENRY C. POTTER — Address at
the Washington Centennial Service in St. Paul's Chapel, New York. Apr. 30, 1889. Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.— SHERIDAN — The Rivals. Act IV. Sc. 1.
I make little account of genealogical trees. Mere family never made a man great. Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fate.— GENERAL SKOBELEFF — Fortnightly
Review. Oct., 1882. 'Tis happy for him that his father was born before him.— SWIFT — Polite Conversation.
Dialogue III. From yon blue heavens above us bent, The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent.— TENNYSON — Lady Clara Vere de Vere. St. 7.
He seems to be a man sprung from himself.— TIBERIUS — See Annals of Tacitus. Bk. XI. Sc. 21.
As though there were a tie, And obligation to posterity! We get them, bear them, breed and nurse. What has posterity done for us, That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?— JOHN TRUMBULL — Mc Fingal. Canto II. L. 121.
Bishop Warburton is reported to have said that high birth was a thing which he never knew any one disparage except those who had it not, and he never knew any one make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of.— WHATELY — Annot. on Bacon's Essay,
Of Nobility. Rank is a farce: if people Fools will be A Scavenger and King's the same to me.— JOHN WOLCOTT — (Peter Pindar).
Title Page. Peter's Prophecy. They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt, instead of their discharge. C.— YOUNG — Love of Fame. Satire I. L. 147.
Stemmata quid faciunt, quid prodest, Pontice, longo, Sanguine censeri pictosque ostendere vultus. Of what use are pedigrees, or to be thought of noble blood, or the display of family portraits, O Ponticus?— JUVENAL — Satira. VIII. 1.
Nam genus et proavos et quæ non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco. Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.— OVID — Metamorphoses. XIII. 140.