Washington Irving Quotes

Of what avail are pedigrees?

I was born into a very important family in Japan. My grandfather was a descendant of the Emperor, and we were very wealthy.

She wanted us to feel we were above everyone in the town. She really did tell us that we were related to Chief Justice John Marshall, and that may have been true. I never did bother to find out.

What is the use of your pedigrees?

Somewhere among every man's ancestors is a prince or a lord, a priest or a saint, and don't forget it. Wake up! Inherit the wealth of your ancestors!.. Stop living like a mouse, live like the rich people do.

Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father's side they date back further than Adam. On the topmost branches of her family tree there's a superior breed of monkeys with very fine silky hair and extra long tails.

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; . . .

I have wondered sometimes if there are not perhaps some disadvantages in having really blue blood in one's veins, like grandmamma and me.

You want to try to find your heritage.

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you're obliged to act like one.

But the most precious research to me came from the paperwork filed on behalf of my grandparents and great-grandfather. The ship's manifest showed that they could read and write. I am still emotional when I look at those boxes checked yes.

There is no stronger craving in the world than that of the rich for titles, except that of the titled for riches.

I think of myself as a young prince from a long line of royalty.

I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great Estates and Titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for 'Tis only to them that they are blessings.

Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name.

A court is an assembly of noble and distinguished beggars.

My dad has done a bit of research on our family tree, and we can trace it quite far back. My dad believes he has traced us back to being a great-great-great-great-great-great cousin of Wellington.

I realized if I didn't start talking to my relatives, asking questions, thinking back to my own beginnings, there would come a time when those people wouldn't be around to help me look back and remember.

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order.

Kings! Why, what's a king? .... Is their blood purer than our own? We are all the seed of Abraham!

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, But leave us still our old nobility.

Titles were symbols, just as impressive buildings were symbols, except that titles, unlike buildings, cost nothing.

People will not look forward to posterity who are not anxious to look backward to their ancestry

Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.