Quotes About Ancestors

Whatever my ancestors did to you, none of them consulted me.

My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.

Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. He gave to our ancestors the lands which we possess. We are determined to defend them, and if it is His will, our bones shall whiten on them, but we will never give them up.

And that's how we measure out our real respect for people—by the degree of feeling they can register, the voltage of life they can carry and tolerate—and enjoy. End of sermon. As Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you.

To be at the forefront of something that can spark a major change as far as kids going to an HBCU and learning about our history and learning about our culture and learning about our ancestors, where we came from - that's a big thing, that's a really big thing.

We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.

There's a rich legend of this in other cultures, this speaking with ancestors. The Christian mystics communicated with angels.

I never got to know my grandparents, and I am envious of my friends who have a special relationship with theirs.

I love Christmas. At this very special time of year, when the sun appears only fleetingly to those of us living in the northern hemisphere, I feel a deep connection with ancient ancestors.

Much as I wish it were not so, we do live in a dangerous world. It has, in fact, always been this way. Our earliest ancestors had to worry about predators, natural disasters, disease, and - unique among our species - attacks by other people.

With the discovery of Zinjanthropus at Olduvai Gorge in 1959, my grandmother Mary Leakey pioneered the research in East Africa with my grandfather Louis. Many more spectacular fossil finds have since been made, both in Africa and elsewhere, by many researchers driven to understand our past.

Our cautious ancestors, when yawning, blocked the way to the entrance of evil spirits by putting their hands before their mouths. We find a reason for the gesture in the delicacy of manner which forbids an indecent exposure.

My ancestors had to keep their customs secret for fear of death or persecution, so it's common to be secretive and discreet about Regla de Ocha. But it's my family's spirituality, so I don't want to keep it secret.

Well into the 20th century, black people spoke of their flight from Mississippi in much the same manner as their runagate ancestors had.

Three of my children are medical doctors; they know at least a hundred times as much about your body as my grandfather knew, but they don't know much more about soul than he did.

Let our posterity know that we their ancestors, uncultured and unlearned, amid all trials and temptations, were men of integrity.

You [Scots] come of a race of men the very wind of whose name has swept to the ultimate seas.

Let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind.

But this probably saved my father's parents' lives, for, in all the lands controlled by Spain and Portugal, the Inquisition went on a rampage after that. Instead of being roasted alive in some Portuguese auto da fé, my father's parents moved to New Amsterdam and worked for the Dutch West India Company in the slave trade, which was all they knew how to do.

He said, The spring was good enough for their mothers and their grandmothers before them. They will get ideas above their station in life if they have a well. She

If our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people,' he had reminded his Cabinet colleagues in 1878, 'the British Empire would not have been made.

I wrote this book because I had formed a strong impression that the people currently living were paying insufficient attention to the dead.

I say, then, that hereditary States, accustomed to the family of their Prince, are maintained with far less difficulty than new States, since all that is required is that the Prince shall not depart from the usages of his ancestors, trusting for the rest to deal with events as they arise.

I definitely respect the men and women who came before me and how much those people gave to me musically.