A Quote by Yevgeny Zamyatin

To the feudal aristocracy and the aristocracy of the spirit, nobility derives from diametrically opposite sources. The glory of the feudal aristocrat is in being a link in the longest possible chain of ancestors. The glory of the aristocrat of the spirit is in having no ancestors - or having as few as possible. If an artist is his own ancestor, if he has only descendents, he enters history as a genius; if he has few ancestors, or is related to them distantly, he enters history as a talent.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Quote Topics

Ancestor Ancestors Aristocracy Aristocrat Artist Being Chain Feudal Few Genius Glory Having His History Link Longest Nobility Only Opposite Own Possible Related Sources Spirit Talent Them

Quote Author

Yevgeny Zamyatin
Russian - Writer
February 1, 1884 - March 10, 1937

The aristocracy of feudal parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing, and now, by a natural course, we arrive at aristocracy of the money-bag.

Thomas Carlyle

Our ancestors are looking for us even if we're not looking for them. And by our ancestors I mean our bloodlines and the ancestors of the place where we live and our spiritual kin who go beyond our biological families. We could be walking around carrying an entire ancestral history of the wrong kind for us.

Robert Moss

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's clearly possible for a something to acquire higher intelligence than its ancestors: we evolved to be smarter than our ape-like ancestors, and Einstein was smarter than his parents.

Stephen Hawking

My first American ancestor, gentlemen, was an Indian-an early Indian. Your ancestors skinned him alive, and I am an orphan. All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine. Your people made it tropical for them. . . . The first slave brought into New England out of Africa was an ancestor of mine-for I am a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel.

Mark Twain

We are creatures. We have a link with a native habitat just like every other species. Throughout most of human history, physical activity was unavoidable, calories were scarce and hard to get. In the modern era, calories are unavoidable, physical activity is scare and hard to get. The traits that allowed our ancestors to survive, and let's face it, the survival of our ancestors is the reason that we're here because the people who don't survive and make very crummy ancestors, are our traits. But they're very much at odds with the modern environment.

David Katz

Memories are their own descendents masquerading as the ancestors of the present.

David Mitchell

Our doctrinal obligation is to our own ancestors. This is because the celestial organization of heaven is based on families. The First Presidency has encouraged members, especially youth and young single adults, to emphasize family history work and ordinances for their own family names or the names of ancestors of their ward and stake members. We need to be connected to both our roots and branches. The thought of being associated in the eternal realm is indeed glorious.

Quentin L. Cook

There's a belief that wherever your Ancestors took shape from the sticks and stones that formed them, that's home. Ancestors from the coast leave their mark, Ancestors from the mountains, from the desert, they all leave their mark on the genes. When you come home, the genes rejoice.

Kate Wilhelm

When the ancestors of the cheetah first began pursuing the ancestors of the gazelle, neither of them could run as fast as they can today.

Richard Dawkins

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.

Edmund Burke

Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

Edith Sitwell

As you know, the fossil record includes not only the ancestors of crocodiles and whales, but also the ancestors of human beings. And this, of course, is why evolution remains controversial.

Kenneth R. Miller

Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors had already learned....That is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions.