Quotes About Ancestry

There is no grater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.

For everyone in this occupation, the skyline of New York is a family tree.

To a Scot, the past clings like sand to wet feet

Xander, have you ever googled "Mayflower" and "Billingtons"? Because I did. And it turns out one of your ancestors almost blew up the ship. And another one got hanged for murder after they landed in America. Ed. Note: 100% TRUE (you can google this)

Cuando releo mis viejos cuadernos de reflexiones, a veces doy con una idea propia que me satisface. Me sorprende que una idea se pueda volver tan ajena para mí y mi sistema, y me alegro tanto como si se le hubiera ocurrido a un antepasado.

Darüber, daß sie nichts zum zweitenmal erfinden wollen, lernen sie alles so ansehen, wie es ihre Vorfahren angesehen haben. Der zweite Fehler ist aber gewiß schlimmer, als der erste.

It is fortunate to come of distinguished ancestry. - It is not less so to be such that people do not care to inquire whether you are of high descent or not.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

The nation provided a human with the things that are most human—language and a past that stretched back before his birth.

It's a sword made out of your grandmother's bones, Kate.

si las locuras se repiten en la familia, debe ser que existe una memoria genética que impide que se pierdan en el olvido.

mis raíces ya se habrían secado si no estuviesen nutridas por el rico magma del pasado

Mi abuela escribía en sus cuadernos para salvar los fragmentos evasivos de los días y engañar a la mala memoria.

Mapu-ché, «gente de la tierra», así se llaman ellos mismos

Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you.

My dad's from Zimbabwe, and my mom is Danish, Irish, and Norwegian, so I have influences from a lot of different places.

I'm actually the son of Mary Guibert. My mother was born in the Panama Canal zone and came to America when she was five with my grandmother and grandfather, and that was the family I knew. Everybody sang; everybody had songs all the time, and they loved music.

My father was a Creole, his father a Negro, and his father a monkey; my family, it seems, begins where yours left off.

Noble ancestry makes a poor dish at table.

A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.

Twenty generations ago - around the year 1390 - you had 1,048,576 ancestors. In the 21st generation of your family that number will double again.

It is a wise child that knows his own father.

There is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage.

Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living.