Grandparents and Ancestors

My grandmother is over 80 and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

There was no room in God’s army for the coward heart, no crown awaiting him who put mother or father, sister or brother, sweetheart or friend above God’s will. Let the church cry amen to this!

‘Oh Grandmother! What big ears you have!’

Happy the man who, far away from business, like the race of men of old, tills his ancestral fields with his own oxen, unbound by any interest to pay.

Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors'.

I don’t know who my grandfather was. I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

The conviction reigns that it is only through the sacrifices and accomplishments of the ancestors that the tribe exists--and that one has to pay them back with sacrifices and accomplishments; one thus recognizes a debt that constantly grows greater, since these forebears never cease, in their continued existence as powerful spirits, to accord the tribe new advantages and new strength.

O generations of men, how I count you as equal with those who live not at all!

Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.

The youth of America is their oldest tradition.

Pardon, old fathers.

We have become a grandmother.

I’m very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.

Our Irish ancestors believed in magic, prayers, trickery, browbeating and bullying. I think it would be fair to sum that list up as “Irish politics.”

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. W.