Pride thyself on what virtue thou hast, and not on thy parentage.
Ancestors Quotes
Old genealogists never die. They just lose their census.
Beware of men who flourish with hereditary honors.
What we shall some day become will grow inexorably out of what today we are; and what we are now, in its turn, comes out of what earlier Americans were – out of what they did and thought and dreamed and hoped for, out of their trials and their aspirations, out of their shining victories […]
I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved […]
One of the best things people could do for their descendents would be to sharply limit the number of them.
If you could see your ancestors, all standing in a row, there might be some among them whom you wouldn’t care to know. But there’s another matter, which requires a different view; if you could see your ancestors, would they be proud of you?
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, so he be man of merit.
Birth is nothing where virtue is not.
The pride of ancestry increases in the ratio of distance.
