Grandparents and Ancestors

My father was the Jewish half of the family, yet it was my mother who taught me to have pride in that tradition.

A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year- old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

With him for a sire and her for a dam, / What should I be but just what I am?

Deep in the cavern of the infant’s breast / The father’s nature lurks, and lives anew.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; / Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

In a brief space the generations of living beings are changed and like runners pass on the torches of life.

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

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,— / Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; / Another race the following spring supplies: / They fall successive, and successive rise.

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

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!

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

Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal.

The youth of America is their oldest tradition.

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.

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended-and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended.

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.

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

The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. W.

A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.

Rome reminds me of a man who lives by exhibiting to travelers his grandmother’s corpse.