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.
Nam genus et proavos et quæ non fecimus ipsi
Vix ea nostra voco.
Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
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.
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.
On garde toujours la marque de ses origines.
One always retains the traces of one's origin.
Majorum gloria posteris lumen est, neque bona neque mala in occulto patitur.
The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither their good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity.
Stemma non inspicit. Omnes, si ad primam
originem revocentur, a Diis sunt.
It [Philosophy] does not pay attention to pedigree. All, if their first origin be in question, are from the Gods.
Qui genus jactat suum
Aliena laudat.
He who boasts of his descent, praises the deeds of another.
Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.
I make little account of genealogical trees. Mere family never made a man great. Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fate.
The Smiths never had any arms, and have invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs.
Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal.
'Tis happy for him that his father was born before him.
From yon blue heavens above us bent,
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.
Bond hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
He seems to be a man sprung from himself.
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.
Rank is a farce: if people Fools will be
A Scavenger and King's the same to me.
He stands for fame on his forefather's feet,
By heraldry, proved valiant or discreet!
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years
Have disinherited his future hours,
Which starve on orts, and glean their former field.
