Quotes About Heritage

People want to think of a food tradition as something that would continue unchanging and timeless, unless some outside force knocked things askew.

How old does a recipe have to be in order to be traditional? What should we think when an old industrial food like salted (corned) beef or pickled herring becomes a part of "traditional" ethnic cuisine?

Out of the prospering but vulnerable Hungarian Jewish middle class came no fewer than seven of the twentieth century's most exceptional scientists: in order of birth, Theodor von Kármán, George de Hevesy, Michael Polanyi, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann and Edward Teller.

My parents would say something to me and I would feel embraced by the sounds of their words. Those sounds said: I am speaking with ease in Spanish. I am addressing you in words I never use with los gringos. I recognize you as someone special, close, like no one outside. You belong with us. In the family.

As Jaroslav Pelikan so wisely put it years ago, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, and I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives Tradition such a bad name

As Jaroslav Pelikan so wisely put it years ago, " Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, and I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives Tradition such a bad name."1

America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man. I asked myself if these human qualities were not fostered, won, struggled and suffered for, preserved in ritual from one generation to another.) Granny

There were many more folk ditties, some mean, others filthy, all of them cruel. No one ever thought of questioning our right to do this; our mothers and parents generally approved, either actively or passively. To hold an attitude of antagonism or distrust toward Jews was bred in us from childhood; it was not merely racial prejudice, it was a part of our cultural heritage.

Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man.

You can't choose your parentage. But you can choose your legacy.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

You are a half-blood, Zoe Nightshade said. Her accent was hard to place. It sounded old-fashioned, like she was reading from a really old book. One of thy parents was mortal. The other was an Olympian. An Olympian athlete? No, Zoe said. One of the gods. Cool! said Nico.

Congratulations, man. What's her name? Estelle. It was my grandmother's name. Um, on my mom's side, obviously. Not Poseidon's. I approve, Alex said. Old-fashioned and elegant. Estelle Jackson. Well, Estelle Blofis , Percy corrected. My stepdad is Paul Blofis. Not much I can do about that surname, but my little sis is awesome. Five fingers. Five toes. Two eyes. She drools a lot. Just like her brother, Annabeth said. Alex laughed.

My eyes were gray—more like my cousin Annabeth's than my mom's.

You sure you're not a Roman, Annabeth? Or an Amazon?

We passed hieroglyphic scrolls, gold jewelry, sarcophagi, statues of pharaohs, and huge chunks of limestone. Why would someone display a rock? Aren't there enough of those in the world?

You cannot control your parentage, but you can choose your legacy

Frank Zhang: lumbering klutz, child of Mars, part-time pachyderm.

I hate the word 'demigod'. I prefer 'being born with a target on my back. - Blitzen

It seemed strange, the Muslim Maghrib prayer aboard a Viking ship full of atheists and pagans. Then again, Samirah's ancestors had been dealing with Vikings since the Middle Ages. I doubted this was the first time prayers to Allah had been said aboard a longship. The world, the worlds , were a lot more interesting because of constant intermixing.

O passado é aquilo que transportamos connosco

a birthmark the shape of Africa.

They were lucky. They'd been given history.

When he stepped off the train in Waverley Station yesterday, he had been expecting the 50 percent of his genes that were Scottish to recognize their heritage. He thought perhaps he would discover an emotional link with a past he'd never known, walk down a street and the faces would feel familiar, turn a corner or climb a stair and there would be an epiphany of sorts, but in fact Edinburgh felt more foreign to him than Paris did.