Quotes About Ancestry

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

I am the son of the first fish who climbed ashore but the news has not yet reached my bowels.

I have nothing but a book, Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

Each county has usually some family, or personage, supposed to have been favoured or plagued, especially by the phantoms, as the Hackets of Castle Hacket, Galway, who had for their ancestor a fairy, or John-o'-Daly of Lisadell, Sligo, who wrote "Eilleen Aroon

As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy fellow living in the trees and that my frame has come down through geological time via sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish, Dinosaurs, and Apes. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden?

You don't know your father, do you?"I shook my head. "No. All I know is he must have had wicked cool hair."Dimitri glanced up, and his eyes swept me. "Yes. He must have.

My dad had been an actor... not only had my dad been an actor, but his dad had been an actor, and my great-grandfather had been an actor. And who knows before then?

Which brings us to the least sexy word in the English language, kids," Dad said, kicking back in his chair. "Inbreeding. Avoid it.

My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.

My dad recently reminded me that my grandfather's cousin was Lefty Frizzell.

I know exactly where I've come from, I know exactly who my mum and dad are.

My dad's half-Lebanese, my mom is full Lebanese. I'm three-quarters Lebanese. Irish-Lebanese.

Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?

I'm grateful that on my father's side I'm descended from a practical Welsh farmer. To that link with the soil I owe whatever measure of physical energy and stability I have.

When they launch snakes you'll have your namesake.

Personally, I don't think that having a water goddess for an ancestress is a guarantee of freedom against seasickness, nor come to that, shipwreck.

We the daughters of Melusina,' she corrects me. 'Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age I didn't know whether she could summon up a storm or whatever it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it.

We, the daughters of Melusina," she corrects me. "Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age, I didn't know whether she could summon up a storm or whether it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it.

It's as if our name is both our greatest pride and our curse," I say.

Like many women, she was unable to fit exactly with her husband's view. Her feet hurt: she could not walk in the path of her husband's choosing. She tried to dance to please him, but she could not deny the pain. She is the ancestress of the royal house of Burgundy, and we, her descendants, still try to walk in the paths of men, and sometimes we too find the way unbearably hard.

Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.

You say that you have a dog. Yes, a villain of a one, said Ctesippus. And he has puppies? Yes, and they are very like himself. And the dog is the father of them? Yes, he said, I certainly saw him and the mother of the puppies come together. And is he not yours? To be sure he is. Then he is a father, and he is yours; ergo, he is your father, and the puppies are your brothers.

So said the old man: As a boy I gathered fruit from the trees planted by my forebears. Am I not, then, required to plant the trees that will sustain my grandchildren?

Furthermore, his family's connections