We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of.
—George Chapman (c.1560–1634) English Poet, Playwright
A grandfather is no longer a social institution.—Men do not live in the past.—They merely look back.—Forward is the universal cry.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it.
—Richard Whately (1787–1863) English Philosopher, Theologian
Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
It would be more honorable to our distinguished ancestors to praise them in words less, but in deeds to imitate them more.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
The kind of ancestors we have had is not as important as the kind of descendants our ancestors have.
—Unknown
Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Nothing is more disgraceful than for a man who is nothing, to hold himself honored on account of his forefathers; and yet hereditary honors are a noble and splendid treasure to descendants.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name.
—Lucian (c.120–c.200 CE) Greek Satirist, Rhetorician, Writer
Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Breed is stronger than pasture.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Few people disparage a distinguished ancestry except those who have none of their own.
—Joel Hawes (1789–1867) American Clergyman
It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good.—They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding nobility of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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.
—W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English Dramatist, Librettist, Poet, Illustrator
What can we see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Birth is nothing where virtue is not.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.
—Joyce Carol Oates (b.1938) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Playwright, Poet, Literary Critic
We owe it to our ancestors to preserve entire those rights they have delivered to our care. We owe it to our posterity not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed.
—Junius Unidentified English Writer
It is a shame for a man to desire honor only because of his noble progenitors, and not to deserve it by his own virtue.
—John Chrysostom (c.347–407 CE) Archbishop of Constantinople
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, produce their debt, instead of their discharge.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
Consider whether we ought not to be more in the habit of seeking honor from our descendants than from our ancestors; thinking it better to be nobly remembered than nobly born; and striving so to live, that our sons, and our sons’ sons, for ages to come, might still lead their children reverently to the doors out of which we had been carried to the grave, saying, “Look, this was his house, this was his chamber.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Every man is his own ancestor, and every man is his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past.
—Frederic Henry Hedge
It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
The scholar without good breeding is a nitpicker; the philosopher a cynic; the soldier a brute and everyone else disagreeable.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
From our ancestors come our names from our virtues our honor.
—Common Proverb
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