They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy. – James Russell Lowell

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing is so soothing to our self esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us. – Van Wyck Brooks

We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language. – Joyce Carol Oates