An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth). Although our ancestors are not with us now, we choose to keep them with us.
If you’re searching for famous family quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of birth quotes, powerful parents quotes, and top grandma quotes.
Most Famous Ancestors Quotes
A child doesn’t belong to the mother or father; a child belongs to his ancestors.
Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you. Mark Twain
A parent should not give up modeling their children, because the ancestors never give up on us.
In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness. Alex Haley, Roots
As you do for your ancestors, your children will do for you.
There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children one is roots, and the other, wings. Hodding S. Carter
Blessings of ancestors are greater than those of living human beings.
When a society or a civilization perishes, one condition can always be found. They forgot where they came from. Carl Sandburg
Children are the reward of life.
I don’t know who my grandfather was, I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be. Abraham Lincoln
Dreams are the voices of ancestors.
You live as long as you are remembered. Russian proverb
If you know his father and grandfather you may trust his son.
Those who forget their past are destined to repeat it. Robert A. Heinlein
If you lie, the ancestors will punish you.
We are the children of many sires, and every drop of blood in us in its turn betrays its ancestor. Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is better to be kind to your neighbors, than to cross the world to offer incense to your ancestors.
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors. Edmund Burke
Many births mean many burials.
Everyone has ancestors and it is only a question of going back far enough to find a good one. Howard Kenneth Nixon
More precious than our children are the children of our children.
It is a desirable thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. Plutarch
No man can outwit the ancestors.
He who has no fools, knaves, or beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning. Old English proverb
Old men and women in the village are books of history and wisdom.
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. George Bernard Shaw
Open your ears to the ancestors and you will understand the language of spirits.
There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his. Helen Keller
Remember the wisdom of your ancestors in order to become wise.
Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future. Gail Lumet Buckley
Silence brings wisdom of the ancestors.
I don’t have to look up my family tree because I know that I’m the sap. Fred Allen
The ancestors may annoy you, but don’t make the mistake of annoying them back, or they may annoy you forever.
If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. Michael Crichton
The future emerges from the past.
We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted. Each of us contains within this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise. Edward Sellner
To neglect one’s ancestors would bring ill fortune and failure in life.
We’ve uncovered some embarrassing ancestors in the not too distant past. Some horse thieves, and some people killed on Saturday nights. One of my relatives, unfortunately, was even in the newspaper business. Jimmy Carter
Treat the world well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was willed to you by your children.
A man who thinks too much about his ancestors is like a potato the best part of him is underground Henry S.F. Cooper
We have not inherited this land from our ancestors; rather we have borrowed it from our children
Southerners are so devoted to genealogy that we see a family tree under every bush. Florence King
A house without children is a graveyard.
We are bound to our ancestors and to those who made us, whether we want to be or not. What matters is what we make of what we are.
Children yoke parents to the past, present and future
Our ancestors have invented, we can at least innovate.
Consider the past and you shall know the future
We rarely know who our ancestors were. Who can even remember the names of their great-grandparents? They have vanished into the dim and distant past.
Don’t take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken.
Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them weren’t even mammals.
Dream of a funeral and you hear of a marriage.
The ancestors are very much invested in the children, because the children are the ones who are going to continue the world that the ancestors made.
Everything in the past died yesterday, and everything in the future is born today.
Fruits of the same tree have different tastes; children of the same mother have various qualities.
The point is that for our ancestors, the universe was a picture; for modern physics it is a story.
It is difficult to repay the gifts you get at a wedding or a funeral
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
Learn about the future by looking at the past.
Our ancestors, possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.
Married couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.
Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents.
Only fools seek credit from the achievements of their ancestors.
When we know about our ancestors, when we sense them as living and as supporting us, then we feel connected to the genetic life-stream, and we draw strength and nourishment from this.
The baby has not been born yet, and yet you assert that his nose is like his grandfather’s.
We were not the victims of ancestor worship. We had the benefits of a fresh start.
The old should be treated with due respect. Children should be treated with gentleness.
None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The record does not show that Adam and Eve were ever married.
The only things that were missing at the rich man’s funeral were mourners.
Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.
The past is the future of the present
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
The past remembered is a good guide for the future
Life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away, and to learn what is of no value but because it has been forgotten.
To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root
W are all carrying the imprints of our most ancient ancestors. Not simply in the genetic code, but in the imprints of attention that are passed on.
