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The wisdom of our ancestors.
Author: Francis Bacon
Source: (according to Lord Brougham), also attributed to Edmund Burke "Observations on a Late Publication on
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I am a gentleman, though spoiled i' the breeding. The Buzzards
are all gentlemen. We came with the Conqueror.
Author: Richard Brome
Source: The English Moor (act II, 4)
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I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.
Author: Sir Thomas Browne
Source: Dedication to Urn Burial
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People will not look forward to posterity, who never look
backward to their ancestors.
Author: Edmund Burke
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 274)
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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.
Author: Edmund Burke
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 298)
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Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not
exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural,
nor unjust, nor impolite.
Author: Edmund Burke
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 299)
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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.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: "Characters" A Degenerate Noblemen
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Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: A Sketch (l. 1)
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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.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Officiis (CXXXIX)
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I came up-stairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.
Author: William Congreve
Source: Love for Love (act II, sc. 1)
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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.
Author: Marquis Philippe Emanuel de Coulanges
Source: D'Origine de la Noblesse
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Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.
Author: Daniel Defoe
Source: The True-Born Englishman (part I, l. 372)
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Born is a Cellar, . . . and living in a Garret.
Author: Samuel Foote
Source: The Author (act II, sc. 1, l. 375)
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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?
Author: Samuel Foote
Source: The Author (act II, sc. 1, l. 375)
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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.
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Source: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (ch. I)
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Few sons attain the praise
Of their great sires and most their sires disgrace.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Odyssey (bk. II, l. 315), (Pope's translation)
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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.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Carmina (bk. IV, 4)
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"My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you."
- Iphicrates,
Author: Iphicrates
Source: Plutarch's Morals--Apothegms of Kings and Great Commander's--Iphicrates
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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.]
Author: Andoche Junot (Duc d'Abrantes)
Source: when asked as to his ancestry
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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.]
Author: Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
Source: Satires (VIII, 1)
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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.
Author: James Russell Lowell
Source: The Biglow Papers (2nd series, no. 3, III)
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Sire, I am my own Rudolph of Hapsburg.
Author: Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I)
Source: said to the Emperor of Austria, who hoped to trace Napoleon's lineage
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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.
Author: Sir Thomas Overbury
Source: Characters
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Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves
achieved, we can scarcely call our own.
[Lat., Nam genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi
Vix ea nostra voco.]
Author: Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
Source: Metamorphoses (XIII, 140)
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What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. IV, l. 215)
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There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
Author: Helen Keller
Source: None
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He who boasts of his ancestry praises the merits of another.
Author: Seneca
Source: None
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We are all creatures of our ancestry! There is no right and wrong, objectively.
Author: Piers Anthony
Source: None
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If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Source: None
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A nation is a society united by a delusion about it's ancestry and by a common hatred of it's neighbours.
Author: William Ralph Inge
Source: None
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Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Author: Voltaire
Source: None
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