Quotes About Heritage

Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.

Brother, wrote one Cherokee chief, we give up to our white brothers all the land we could any how spare, and have but little left...and we hope you won't let any people take any more from us without our consent. We are neither birds nor fish; we can neither fly in the air nor live under water.... We are made by the same hand and in the same shape as yourselves.

I came into poetry feeling as though, on some level, these words were not just mine but my grandparents', their parents'.

Someone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts.

History will always find you, and wrap you In its thousand arms.

The traditional ways and rituals of all of Earth's peoples are kept in containers of poetry, song, and story. It is how we know who we are, where we are coming from and who we are becoming.

Within a few generations we had gone from being nearly one hundred percent of the population of this continent to less than one-half of one percent. We were all haunted.

I have forgotten the reason, forgive me. I have forgotten my name in the language I was born to, forgive me.

Our knowledge is based on the origin stories of land, genealogy and ancestors. If you know the branches of the tree of relationship between tribal clans and family members, then you know who you are, said the panther to its cubs.

Those Old Ones followed me, the quiet girl with the long dark hair, The daughter of a warrior who wouldn't give up. I wasn't ready yet, to fling free the cross I ran and I ran through the 2 A.M. streets. It was my way of breaking free. I was anything but history. I was the wind.

You were born of a generation that promised to help remember.

I began to understand that poetry did not have to be ... of an English that was always lonesome for its homeland in Europe.

There are still ancient symbols alive

Imagine if we natives went to the cemeteries in your cities and dug up your beloved relatives, pulled off rings, watches, and clothes, and called them artifacts, then carried the bones over to the university for study so we could understand you. Consider that there are more bones of native people in universities and museums for study, than there are those of us living.

Because we are linked by blood and blood is memory without language.

It was a very American story, somehow. 'Lost.' Each community had such stories. Possibly, each family.

Being a young man confirmed in the Presbyterian faith, in the very bedrock of Protestant Christian faith, Josiah understands that his behavior is reckless, and dangerous; it is surely not Christian. Yet, his Slade and Strachan ancestors would cheer for him, if they knew.

You may put this in your interview, Miss Fife, that Robert Frost believes in civilization—which is to say the Caucasian civilization." "But

rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones). EPHESIANS 1:17,18

A person is from wherever they feel best, and roots are for plants. Everyone knows that, don't they?

You know that what makes us extraordinary can sometimes make us dangerous. Your ancestors are proof of that. It is your job to learn from their mistakes as well as their triumphs. Isn't that true?

You are transformed into one of the gypsy ancestors we have never discussed.

Because men have a history, it is difficult for them to imagine what it is like to grow up without one, or the sense of personal expansion that comes from discovering that we women have a worthy heritage. Along with pride often comes rage – rage that one has been deprived of such a significant knowledge.

A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. … Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.