Quotes & Sayings About Blood Ties

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars. — Edmund Burke

Even divorce, she thought, cannot erase all the bonds forged by years of marriage. Long after the papers are signed, decrees notarized, the ties still remain. And the most powerful tie of all is written in a child's flesh and blood. — Tess Gerritsen

I was always interested in science, truth, goodness and fairness. I have always been strongly individualistic and merit-oriented. This is probably because I was adopted and thus have always tended to cavalierly dismiss the importance of "blood ties" and any inherited or "unearned" group characteristics. — Stephan Kinsella

The increasing remoteness of consanguinity is everyday diminishing the force of the family compact between France and Spain. And politicians have ever with great reason considered the ties of blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection. — Alexander Hamilton

You know what I hate about rock? I hate tie-dyed tee shirts. I wouldn't wear a tie-dyed tee shirt unless it was dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia. — Kurt Cobain

Ties of blood are not always ties of friendship; but friendship founded on merit, on esteem, and on mutual trust, becomes more vital and more tender when strengthened by the ties of blood. — Lord Chesterfield

Hen I tried to talk to him I realized that, though ties of blood made us kin, though I could see a shadow of my face in his face, though there was an echo of my voice in his voice, we were forever strangers, speaking a different language, living on vastly distant planes of reality — Richard Wright

Up and away for life! be fleet!-
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
And hems in life with narrowing fence.
Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-
The punctual stars will vigil keep,-
Embalmed by purifying cold;
The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
The snow is no ignoble shroud,
The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sirs, you are doubtlessly intelligent people, however, I have a problem understanding how you found a place in prophecy for those I know to be void of a even a single drop of Hebrew blood - without any cultural or historical ties to the Holy Land and in fact simple converts to a base form of Judaism. Clinton eulogized Rabinowitz (Yitzhak Rabin) as a son of David and a son of Solomon. You must know that this man was a Khazar of Turko- Mongolian lineage, and can in no way represent a 'return' since his southern Russian ancestors never made it down to Palestine until 1948. — Dave Hunt

We should free ourselves from the narrowness of being related only to those familiar to us, either by the fact that they are blood relations or, in a larger sense, that we eat the same food, speak the same language, and have the same " common sense." Knowing men in the sense of compassionate and empathetic knowledge requires that we get rid of the narrowing ties of a given society, race or culture and penetrate to the depth of that human reality in which we are all nothing but human. True compassion and knowledge of man has been largely underrated as a revolutionary factor in the development of man, just as art has been. It is a noteworthy phenomenon that in the development of capitalism and its ethics, compassion (or mercy) ceases to be a virtue. — Erich Fromm

One of the things that made the Black Muslim movement grow was its emphasis upon things African. This was the secret to the growth of the Black Muslim movement. African blood, African origin, African culture, African ties. And you'd be surprised - we discovered that deep within the subconscious of the black man in this country, he is still more African than he is American. — Malcolm X

[Gambling] is a perfidious passion ... It is bad for one to win, and bad not to win ... it ends by setting your blood on fire, and to increase your chances of winning at any cost, your stakes increase frightfully; the desire of winning gets to be a madness. The soul gets sick; it neither sees nor hears anything. No family ties, position, nor fortune, can stand against this passion. — Matilde Serao

A war changes people in a number of ways. It either shortcuts you to your very self; or it triggers such variations that you might as well have been a larva, pupating in dampness, darkness and tightly wrapped puttees. Then, providing you don't take flight from a burst shell, you emerge from your khaki cocoon so changed from what you were that you fear you've gone mad, because people at home treat you as though you were someone else. Someone who, through a bizarre coincidence, had the same name, address and blood ties as you, but who must have died in the war. And you have no choice but to live as an impostor because you can't remember who you were before the war. There's a simple but horrible explanation for this: you were born in the war. You slid, slick, bloody and fully formed, out of a trench.
The Great War was the greatest changer of them all. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Destiny. To believe that a life is meant for a single purpose, one must also believe in a common fate. Father to daughter, brother to sister, mother to child. Blood ties can be as unyielding as they are eternal. But it is our bonds of choice that truly light the road we travel. Love versus hatred. Loyalty against betrayal. A person's true destiny can only be revealed at the end of his journey, and the story I have to tell is far from over. — Emily Thorne

So often they made her think of the phrase "Blood is thicker than water," because at times blood was the only bond they shared and she had to remind herself they were family, because at times it was unbelievable they were even related. She loved them, but she hadn't chosen them. — Victoria Kahler

Whatever may be said as to our relations to some other countries, I think the relations of this country to Spain offer no ties of gratitude or of blood. — Henry Cabot Lodge

I feel closer ties and more intimate bonds with certain characters in books, with certain images I've seen in engravings, than with many supposedly real people with the metaphysical absurdity known as 'flesh and blood'. In fact, 'flesh and blood' describes them very well: they resemble cuts of meat laid out on the butcher's marble slab, dead creatures bleeding as though still alive. — Fernando Pessoa

Recent evidence in the field of cardiology has shown that the nature of a patient's emotional ties drastically affects whether or not this patient will get heart disease. Experiments have shown that a patient's blood chemistry changes when that patient has a bitter thought. Doctors are now including, in their treatment of heart patients, training in becoming more loving and trusting. A person's ability to love and connect with others lays the foundation for both psychological and physical health. This research illustrates that when we are in a — Henry Cloud

My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. — Edmund Burke

And it shall come to pass that what men made shall be shattered, and the Shadow shall lie across the Pattern of the Age, and the Dark One shall once more lay his hand upon the world of man. Women shall weep and men quail as the nations of the earth are rent like rotting cloth. Neither shall anything stand nor abide . . . Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born before and shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his coming, tearing apart all ties that bind. Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us, and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light. Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation. — Robert Jordan

The people we love fall into two distinct camps, it seems to me. First, those whom we are obliged to care for, connected to us through ties of blood and, occasionally, other people's marriages. Then there are those few souls who suit us so perfectly that we cannot help but love them. Those whose very presence seems to lift our spirits, soothe our ruffled feathers, tilt the disturbed world so that its axis is true again. — Sharon Bolton

The ties of blood," said Spider, "are stronger than water."
Water's not strong," objected Fat Charlie. — Neil Gaiman

I lay there knowing something eerie ties us to the world of animals. Sometimes the animals pull you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood. — Barry Lopez

Blood ties are not supposed to be chains. — V.C. Andrews

Naturally, it causes psychological harm as well; it shouldn't surprise you that a national survey of 24,000 workers found that men and women with few social ties were two to three times more likely to suffer from major depression than people with strong social bonds.9 When we enjoy strong social support, on the other hand, we can accomplish impressive feats of resilience, and even extend the length of our lives. One study found that people who received emotional support during the six months after a heart attack were three times more likely to survive.10 Another found that participating in a breast cancer support group actually doubled women's life expectancy post surgery.11 In fact, researchers have found that social support has as much effect on life expectancy as smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and regular physical activity.12 — Shawn Achor

Only in retrospect do I appreciate that this "doing your bit" is a deadly misapprehension of the nature of familial ties. Better understanding them now, I find blood relationships rather frightening. What is wonderful about kinship is also what is horrible about it: there is no line in the sand, no natural limit to what these people can reasonably expect of you. — Lionel Shriver

Maybe I am fated to always be alone, Tsukuru found himself thinking. People came to him, but in the end they always left. They came, seeking something, but either they couldn't find it, or were unhappy with what they found (or else they were disappointed or angry), and then they left. One day, without warning, they vanished, with no explanation, no word of farewell. Like a silent hatchet had sliced the ties between them, ties through which warm blood still flowed, along with a quiet pulse. — Haruki Murakami

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude. — Sallust

So now that you know my truth, let's talk about yours. — J.D. Cunegan

The heart swellings convince me of the folly of those who dare to think that any new ties can weaken the first and best of nature. — Stephanie Dray

The ones we choose to love become our anchorwhen the hawser of the blood-tie's hacked, or frays. — Tony Harrison

So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing. — Jane Austen

Of course, God's Moldovan. Otherwise why would he give me so much help?" Jan whispered.
Just then, a policeman walked up and fined him three hundred euros for who-knows-what, which the old timer coughed up so as not to lose his entire stash. Jan Realizes that God is not only Moldovan, but also in some sense Romanian, too. The contradiction resolved itself when Jan recalled the close blood ties between the two nations. — Vladimir Lorchenkov

True kinship has naught to do with blood ties, however strong they be. I think we are all kin, brothers and sisters one to the other, all children of all parents. — Lloyd Alexander

In Sri Lanka, when two strangers meet, they ask a series of questions that reveal family, ancestral village, and blood ties until they arrive at a common friend or relative. Then they say, "Those are our people, so you are our people." It's a small place. Everyone knows everyone.

"But in America, there are no such namings; it is possible to slip and slide here. It is possible to get lost in the nameless multitudes. There are no ropes binding one, holding one to the earth. Unbound by place or name, one is aware that it is possible to drift out into the atmosphere and beyond that, into the solitary darkness where there is no oxygen. — Nayomi Munaweera

wanted to make him know that he had friends in this world tied to him by something stronger than blood, ties that could never fade or dissolve. That he would never be hungry or cold or motherless while I still drew breath. That he didn't need two hands, or a street address, or clean lungs, or social grace, or a happy disposition to be precious and irreplaceable. That no matter what our future held, my first task would always be to kick a hole in the world and make a space for him where he could safely be his eccentric self. Most — Hope Jahren

There was a nebula there, an explosion of dust and light, the fiery corpse of an ancient giant. Within the gaseous folds slept clusters of unborn stars, shining softly. She took inventory of her body. She felt her breath, her blood, the ties binding it together. Every piece, down to the last atom, had been made out here, flung through the open in a moment of violence, until they had swirled round and round, churning, and coalescing, becoming heavy, weighing each other down, but not any more. The pieces were floating free now. They had returned home. — Becky Chambers

She knew he meant it. He'd burn the library, the city or the whole world to ashes if she asked him. It was their bond, marked by blood and scent and something else she couldn't place. A tether as strong as the one that bound her to her parents. Stronger, in some ways. — Sarah J. Maas

The average clan - and there were more than fifty of them in 1745 - was no more a family than is a Mafia "family." The only important blood ties were those between the chieftain and his various caporegimes, the so-called tacksmen who collected his rents and bore the same name. Below them were a large, nondescript, and constantly changing population of tenants and peasants, who worked the land and owed the chieftain service in war and peacetime. Whether they considered themselves Campbells or MacPhersons or Mackinnons was a matter of indifference, and no clan genealogist or bard, the seanachaidh, ever wasted breath keeping track of them. What mattered was that they were on clan land, and called it home. — Arthur Herman

I suppose that's the reason I believe that as long as there is someone in charge of the household, someone who can maintain order among its members, someone who is clearly mature and established as a person, someone, in other words, like my mother, then eventually all who live under the same roof, despite blood ties or lineage, will at one point become family. Such a simple idea, but one that took a while for me to catch on to.

Oh, and another thing.

If the same people don't spend enough time in a home, even if they are connected by blood, their bonds will slowly fade away like a familiar landscape. — Banana Yoshimoto

All I know is, a writer ever walks into Homicide looking to shadow someone, I'm shooting them on-sight. — J.D. Cunegan

As a South African I honestly cannot understand how people can't see South Africa as a unique nation, untied by ties of history, bonds of suffering, victory, struggles, hope - and in more ways than I ever before thought possible - blood. — Christina Engela

There is a compulsion that is perhaps the heart of life's meanings, this marvelous mystery of blood ties that brings joy whenever a new family member comes on the scene. — Walter Cronkite