Ancestor Quotes

I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.

The ancients, sir, are the ancients, and we are the people of today.

Birth is a shadow. Courage, self-sustained, outlords succession’s phlegm, and needs no ancestors.

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

When Darwin published his conclusion that man was descended from an apelike ancestor who was again descended from a still lower type.

After all, our families–our ancestors–are our identities. Biology is destiny.

Baseball, more than any other sport, has a magical way of connecting fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren and ancestors back down the line. – From The Brooklyn Nine

When my ancestors came from Africa, they were shackled by our neck, our wrists, and our ankles in steel chains.

We are all motivated far more than we care to admit by characteristics inherited from our ancestors which individual experiences of childhood can modify, repress, or enhance, but cannot erase.

Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents.