Descendants Quotes

“it was the kind of moon
that I would want to
send back to my ancestors
and gift to my descendants

so they know that I too,
have been bruised...by beauty.”
― Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence

“My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.”
― Richard M. Rorty

“I would rather my descendants have greater abilities and a greater knowledge of the love of Christ than I do, much like standing on one's shoulders in order to get a clearer view of the valley.”
― Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile

“[Jürgen Habermas' obituary to friend and philosopher, Richard Rorty]

One small autobiographical piece by Rorty bears the title 'Wild Orchids and Trotsky.' In it, Rorty describes how as a youth he ambled around the blooming hillside in north-west New Jersey, and breathed in the stunning odour of the orchids. Around the same time he discovered a fascinating book at the home of his leftist parents, defending Leon Trotsky against Stalin. This was the origin of the vision that the young Rorty took with him to college: philosophy is there to reconcile the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth. Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the 'holy', the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: 'My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.”
― Jürgen Habermas

“To the loyal and to the blood-lovers, in the good families and in the fiery dynasties, life is family and family is life. It is the same people who give advice and their vices to live well who turn out to be the ones who give resource and reason to live long.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“like all other living creatures, I am the descendant of survivors, so the fear in my head is the voice of my ancestors whispering their accumulated wisdom.”
― David George Haskell

“One of the best things people could do for their descendants would be to sharply limit the number of them.”
― Olin Miller

“Villains don't have friends, and neither do their children. Not when you get right down to it.”
― Melissa de la Cruz, The Isle of the Lost

“As a genealogist, I have seen the Big Picture as very few have. Most people now living have no clue who they are or where they come from. We are all descended from the ancient kings of our various cultures. There is nothing unique about it. And let's be honest, most of those kings were pretty ruthless individuals. What's important for us today is that we wake up to the fact that we are all literally cousins. How would our world change if we honored that relationship and started treating one another as family?”
― Laurence Overmire, The Ghost of Rabbie Burns: An American Poet's Journey Through Scotland

“Some of us are given more time on this Earth than others, but none of us should ever take the gift of life for granted. If we strive to be the best we can be, committing ourselves to what is right and true, while helping others along the way, then we will leave our own story worth the telling and be a shining example for our children and our grandchildren and all those great, great, great, great grandchildren in those far off times to come.”
― Laurence Overmire, A Revolutionary American Family: The McDonalds of Somerset County, New Jersey

“No matter who our ancestors are, our own personal and monumental task is to become the best person that we can possibly be - someone in whom our own descendants in times to come can take great pride and find inspiration.”
― Laurence Overmire, Digging for Ancestral Gold: The Fun and Easy Way to Get Started on Your Genealogy Quest

“Every succeeding generation has the opportunity to heal the wounds of the past.”
― Laurence Overmire, A Revolutionary American Family: The McDonalds of Somerset County, New Jersey

“The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Yen Sid surveyed the young villains in front of him. „What you are about to do is very dangerous.”
Carlos perked up. „That's fine, my middle name is–”
„Oscar” said Evie. „We know.”
― Melissa de la Cruz, Return to the Isle of the Lost

“Yet, as I will make clear, any Pleistocene woman who relied on looks alone to pull offspring through was not likely to be a mother very long or leave descendants.”
― Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species

“My genetics have been in my family for generations.”
― J.S. Mason, The Stork Ate My Brother...And Other Totally Believable Stories

“C’est ainsi qu’il dut venir un temps où les yeux du peuple furent fascinés à tel point que ses conducteurs n’avaient qu’à dire au plus petit des hommes, Sois grand, toi et toute ta race, aussitôt il paraissait grand à tout le monde ainsi qu’à ses propres yeux, et ses descendants s’élevaient encore à mesure qu’ils s’éloignaient de lui ; plus la cause était reculée et incertaine, plus l’effet augmentait ; plus on pouvait compter de fainéants dans une famille, et plus elle devenait illustre.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

“Ultimately, the great truths of family history don't live in any book. They live in the hearts and minds of the living descendants. They live in the way we conduct our lives, in the passing of traditions and values to those who will follow.”
― Laurence Overmire, A Revolutionary American Family: The McDonalds of Somerset County, New Jersey

“Though we ourselves have come too late, we shall be envied by our immediate successors, and still more by our remote descendants. In their eyes we shall have the look of privileged characters, and rightly so, for everyone wants to be as far as possible from the future.”
― Emil M. Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations: Essays and Aphorisms

“Our descendants deserve libraries, not barracks. They deserve to inherit a world that values both their waking lives and their dreams.”
― Courtney M. Privett, Dustlight

“Time is the ultimate critic. What future generations think of us and our work ultimately determines our standing or lack of it.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“When a large number of families are no longer willing to perform this duty, when men and women are no longer willing to bond for life and create descendants and raise them into people capable of bonding and achieving, this threatens a nation’s existence—not only its purely physical existence, but also its cultural and political existence.”
― Gabriele Kuby, The Global Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom

“Imbued with favorable energy.”
― Monaristw

“None of our ancestors gave us any particular reason to be proud of them. Except for a rare few, they were all morons and they built of a world of moronity. That is more reason for us to be the first civilized ancestors to our descendants who are just born or yet to be born.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race

“Civilization is not an heirloom that is left to you, civilization is the keepsake that is left by you.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“What might our descendants wish we had done better for them?”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking