person from whom another person is descended From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
Ancestors are parent or (recursively) the parents of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and so forth). Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. Some cultures confer reverence to ancestors, both living and dead. In other cultural contexts, some people seek providence from their deceased ancestors; this practice is sometimes known as ancestor worship or ancestor veneration.
Teach them about the detestable things that their ancestors did. ... Abandon your detestable practices. You are not to defile yourselves with Egypt's idols. ... You are not to follow the statutes of your ancestors, observe their ordinances, or be defiled by their idols. I am the LORD your God.
All of them, my ancestors,/blood of my blood,/flame of my flame,/dead and living mixed together,/sad, grotesque, immense./They trample through me as through a dark house./Trampling with prayers, and curses, and wailing,/rattling my heart like a copper bell,/my tongue quivers,/I don't know my own voice-/My ancestors speak.
Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin translated from Yiddish by Shirley Kumove (2017)
That is the nature of our ancestors: immensely courageous hunters, defenders, shepherds, voyagers, inventors, warriors, and founders of cities and states. That is the father you could rescue; the ancestor you could become.
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Volume III, p. 274.
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) Volume III, p. 298.
Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Volume III, p. 299.
A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground.
Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.
Daniel Defoe, The True-Born Englishman, Part I, line 372.
Born in a Cellar, * * * and living in a Garret.
Samuel Foote, The Author, Act II, scene 1, line 375.
Primus Adam duro cum verteret arva ligone, Pensaque de vili deceret Eva colo: Ecquis in hoc poterat vir nobilis orbe videri? Et modo quisquam alios ante locandus erir?
Say, when the ground our father Adam till'd, And mother Eve the humble distaff held, Who then his pedigree presumed to trace, Or challenged the prerogative of place?
No, my friends, I go (always other things being equal) for the man that inherits family traditions and the cumulative humanities of at least four or five generations.
Few sons attain the praise of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace.
Homer, The Odyssey, Book II, line 315. Pope's translation.
Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis; Est in juvencis, est in equibus patrum Virtus; nec imbellem feroces Progenerant aquilæ columbam.
The brave are born from the brave and good. In steers and in horses is to be found the excellence of their sires; nor do savage eagles produce a peaceful dove.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle IV, line 215.
If there be no nobility of descent, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent,—a character in them that bear rule so fine and high and pure that as men come within the circle of its influence they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction,—the royalty of virtue.
Bishop Henry C. Potter, address to the Washington Centennial Service in St. Paul's Chapel, New York (Apr. 30, 1889).
That all from Adam first begun, None but ungodly Woolston doubts, And that his son, and his son's sons Were all but ploughmen, clowns and louts.
Each when his rustic pains began, To merit pleaded equal right, 'Twas only who left off at noon, Or who went on to work till night.
The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
Alfred Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Stanza 7. ("The Grand Old Gardener" in 1st Ed.).
He seems to be a man sprung from himself.
Tiberius. See Annals of Tacitus, Book XI, scene 21.
As though there were a tie, And obligation to posterity! We get them, bear them, breed and nurse. What has posterity done for us, That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to grip of noose?
Bishop Warburton is reported to have said that high birth was a thing which he never knew any one disparage except those who had it not, and he never knew any one make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years Have disinherited his future hours, Which starve on orts, and glean their former field.
Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night III, line 310.
My tutor I have already mentioned, Marcus Porcius Cato who was, in his own estimation at least, a living embodiment of that ancient Roman virtue which his ancestors had one after the other shown. He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.