Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my mother’s side, suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while being conveyed from Africa to America.
Ancestors Quotes
Nothing like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, and men.
Gentility without ability is worse than plain beggary.
The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato, the only good belonging to him is under ground.
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
A man can’t very well make for himself a place in the sun if he keeps continually taking refuge under the family tree.
Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.
The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it.
A man who boasts only of his ancestors confesses that he belongs to a family that is better dead than alive.
Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.
