He who boasts of his ancestry praises the merits of another
Seneca
Quotes
|
One who is proud of ancestry is like a turnip; there is nothing good of him but that which is underground
Samuel Butler
Quotes
|
|
The wisdom of our ancestors.
Francis Bacon
Quotes , Source: (according to Lord Brougham), also attributed to Edmund Burke "Observations on a Late Publication on
|
I am a gentleman, though spoiled i' the breeding. The Buzzards
are all gentlemen. We came with the Conqueror.
Richard Brome
Quotes , Source: The English Moor (act II, 4)
|
|
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look
backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke
Quotes , Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 274)
|
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 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.
Edmund Burke
Quotes , Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 298)
|
Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not
exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural,
nor unjust, nor impolite.
Edmund Burke
Quotes , Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 299)
|
A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like
a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is
underground.
Samuel Butler (1)
Quotes , Source: "Characters" A Degenerate Noblemen
|
|
|
|
It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house!
alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one."
[Lat., Odiosum est enim, cum a praetereuntibus dicatur:--O domus
antiqua, heu, quam dispari dominare domino.]
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Quotes , Source: De Officiis (CXXXIX)
|
I came up-stairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.
William Congreve
Quotes , Source: Love for Love (act II, sc. 1)
|
D'Adam nous sommes tous enfants,
La prove en est connue,
Et que tous, nos premier parents
Ont mene la charrue.
Mais, las de cultiver enfin
La terre labouree
L'une a detele le matin,
L'autre l'apres-dinee.
Marquis Philippe Emanuel de Coulanges
Quotes , Source: D'Origine de la Noblesse
|
Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.
Daniel Defoe
Quotes , Source: The True-Born Englishman (part I, l. 372)
|
Born is a Cellar, . . . and living in a Garret.
Samuel Foote
Quotes , Source: The Author (act II, sc. 1, l. 375)
|
Say, when the ground our father Adam till'd,
And mother Eve the humble distaff held,
Who then his pedigree presumed to trace,
Or challenged the prerogative of place?
[Lat., Primus Adam duro cum vertet arva ligone,
Pensaque de vili deceret Eva colo:
Ecquis in hoc poterat vir nobilis orbe videri?
Et modo quisquam alios ante locandue erir?
Samuel Foote
Quotes , Source: The Author (act II, sc. 1, l. 375)
|
No, my friends, I go (always other things being equal) for the
man that inherits family traditions and the cumulative humanities
of at least four or five generations.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Quotes , Source: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (ch. I)
|
Few sons attain the praise
Of their great sires and most their sires disgrace.
Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Quotes , Source: The Odyssey (bk. II, l. 315), (Pope's translation)
|
The brave are born from the brave and good. In steers and in
horses is to be found the excellence of their sire; nor do savage
eagles produce a peaceful dove.
[Lat., Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis;
Est in juvenis, est in equibus patrum
Virtus; nee imbellem feroces
Progenerant aquilae columbam.]
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Quotes , Source: Carmina (bk. IV, 4)
|
"My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you."
- Iphicrates,
Iphicrates
Quotes , Source: Plutarch's Morals--Apothegms of Kings and Great Commander's--Iphicrates
|
Faith, I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.
[Fr., An, ma foi, je n'en sais rien; moi je suis mon ancetre.]
Andoche Junot (Duc d'Abrantes)
Quotes , Source: when asked as to his ancestry
|
Of what use are pedigrees, or to be thought of noble blood, or
the display of family portraits, O Ponticus?
[Lat., Stemmata quid faciunt, quid prodest, Pontice, longo,
Sanguine censeri pictosque ostendere vultus.]
Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
Quotes , Source: Satires (VIII, 1)
|
Sence I've ben here, I've hired a chap to look about for me,
To git me a transplantable an' thrifty fem'ly-tree.
James Russell Lowell
Quotes , Source: The Biglow Papers (2nd series, no. 3, III)
|
|
