Ancestors Quotes

One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education – rather a singular coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a […]

A man finds room in a few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

We live in an impertinent age; fearing the same sort of world-catastrophe which our ancestors hoped for.

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

Heredity is a splendid phenomenon that relieves us of responsibility for our shortcomings.

Ancestors are initiators. Descendants too often are imitators.

She descended from a long line her mother listened to.

(reply to a journalist’s comment, that the Hungarian refugees arriving at Mascot aerodrome, Australia looked scruffy) Ah, yes, but they will make fine ancestors.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.

I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.