Ancestors

DEGENERATE, adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors. The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy it required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of sneering at men who live in these degenerate days, which is perhaps why they suffered him to beg his bread --a marked instance of returning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he would certainly have starved.

- Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

- Alexis Tocqueville Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

My ancestors didn't come over in the Mayflower -- they met the boat.

- Will Rogers Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

It was an attack against us all, because it sought in its violence to divide us by the color of our skin and the nations of our ancestors.

- Tom Ridge Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

As he was doing it, he was saying maybe these are some of my ancestors and my people here. It really was something for him.

- Shirley Gritz Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in palaces. It has been suggested to me that I am a bit of a snob. How true I prefer to be.

- Raymond Chandler Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust --to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.

- Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.

- Thomas B. Macaulay Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

So, as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants.

- Publius Cornelius Tacitus Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

- Frank Herbert Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

It's more like a love-hate relationship. The Russian thing is more about our ancestors. Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II, and they fought against Russia.

- Jarkko Ruutu Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Let them look to the past, but let them also look to the future let them look to the land of their ancestors, but let them look also to the land of their children.

- Wilfrid Laurier Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent invention our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of Othello is an anachronism Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails in our own day --an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.

- Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal.

- Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I realize many of my ancestors fought so I could have the opportunities I have today, and I appreciate them for the sacrifices they made for us.

- Ron Banks Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Would people still use the same demeaning language talking about European gypsies or immigrants It is fundamentally an old, 19th-century throwback to the idea that that these people are somehow like our ancestors, or backward. It conveys that they are somehow not as intelligent as we are that they haven't progressed as far as we have. It is fundamentally a colonial mentality.

- Stephen Corry Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I think these people have betrayed or have forgotten their ancestors.

- Zhu Rongji Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I realized that Eastern thought had somewhat more compassion for all living things. Man was a form of life that in another reincarnation might possibly be a horsefly or a bird of paradise or a deer. So a man of such faith, looking at animals, might be looking at old friends or ancestors.

- William Douglas Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Our concern is that the law be followed and that nobody be denied participation in a program on account of skin color or what country their ancestors came from.

- Roger Clegg Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

From our ancestors come our names, but from our virtues our honor.

- Unknown Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I am glad my ancestors arrived on the Mayflower, but I am gladder that there are nine generations between us.

- William Phelps Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes