Descendant Quotes & Sayings

Nor does linguistics need the nominal blessing of science. It is some sort of systematic, truth-seeking, knowledge-making enterprise, and as long as it brings home the epistemic bacon by turning up results about language, the label isn't terribly important. Etymology is helpful in this regard: science is a descendant of a Latin word for knowledge, and it is only the knowledge that matters. — Randy Allen Harris

Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats. — Douglas Adams

In the beginning, there were bacteria ... [A] nearly universal assumption is that all subsequent life descended from the original life form through a continuous chain of ancestor-descendant pairs. This assumption looks good because all living organisms share biochemical traits. It is conceivable, of course, that life originated more than once on the early earth but that all except one life form died out early, leaving a single lineage as the ancestor of life as we know it. If this did happen, it was the first important species extinction. — David M. Raup

Ever since then, all descendant vertebrates have had the forward end of the digestive system and the forward end of the respiratory system very much involved with each other. This manifests itself in the human body with a crossing of the two systems in the throat. — George C. Williams

I am telling you, Princess, that while you might be the last living direct descendant of Brannon, there are other possibilities, other directions to go in, should you be deemed unfit. — Sarah J. Maas

All the good things in my career are a direct descendant of what I did and learned at # camp — Seth Godin

One hundred thousand years ago our species left Africa, compelled perhaps by precisely this curiosity, learning to look ever farther afield. Flying over Africa by night, I wondered if one of these distant ancestors setting out toward the wide-open spaces of the North could have looked up into the sky and imagined a distant descendant flying up there, pondering on the nature of things, and still driven by his very same curiosity. — Carlo Rovelli

He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family, and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by success in the intrigues of public affairs. — Ann Radcliffe

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

Her name was Zenobia and she was a descendant of Cleopatra. She — Nujeen Mustafa

Every single one of us is the descendant of a go-getter. Of dreamers and of believers. — Marco Rubio

The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I am, of course, directly descended from Brian Boru, the last king of Ireland, a fact certified by my mother and therefore beyond dispute. But as everybody else with a drop of Irish blood in his carcass is also a guaranteed descendant of the old billy goat, I am not overly arrogant because of this royal strain. — Preston Sturges

If we would understand the Scientific Revolution correctly, we should always remember that its most powerful impetus was the unremitting search for hidden divinity. As such, it is a direct descendant of the breakdown of the bicameral mind. — Julian Jaynes

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future. — Herbert Spencer

Nico unsheathed his sword. "You know the Underworld? Would you like me to arrange a visit?" Bryce laughed. His front teeth were two different shades of yellow. "Do you think you can frighten me? I'm a descendant of Orcus, the god of broken vows and eternal punishment. I've heard the screams in the Fields of Punishment firsthand. They're music to my ears. Soon, I'll be adding one more damned soul to the chorus. — Rick Riordan

The dodo itself stands as the best emblem of this general truth - that insular evolution often involves transforming an adventurous, high-flying ancestor species into a grounded descendant, no longer capable of going anywhere but extinct. It's our reminder that insular evolution, for all its wondrousness, tends to be a one-way tunnel toward doom. — Quammen, David

The Rastafari culture has a very strong connection to Haile Selassie, a descendant of King Solomon. — Ziggy Marley

I could never settle for anything less than a renegade and a runaway, a descendant of greatness capable of voluntary disinheritance. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

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

Thus the radio elements formed strange and cruel families in which each member was created by spontaneous transformation of the mother substance: radium was a "descendant" of uranium, polonium a descendant of radium. — Eve Curie

The two palm worms are brought in separate bowls, still alive, wriggling fiercely in a bath of turpentine-colored fish sauce with a few slivers of chili. The glossy brown heads of the grubs, the larvae of a weevil that infests palm trees, glisten like popcorn seeds; the wriggling abdomens have pale rubbery ridges. The owner of the restaurant, chubby and affable, comes out to instruct Nhat and me: we are to grasp the heads, pull off the fat white bodies with our teeth, and discard the heads, taking care that the larvae do not nip our tongues with their formidable pincers in the process. Biting down on squirming larvae seems barbaric, but my brain is starting to swim due to hunger, and the fish sauce is muskily aromatic. How bad could their fat glistening bodies taste? And am I not a direct descendant of insectivores, albeit roughly 100 million years removed? I — Stephen Le

The only part of evolution in which any considerable interest is felt is evolution applied to man. A hypothesis in regard to the rocks and plant life does not affect the philosophy upon which one's life is built. Evolution applied to fish, birds and beasts would not materially affect man's view of his own responsibilities except as the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis as to these would be used to support a similar hypothesis as to man. The evolution that is harmful - distinctly so - is the evolution that destroys man's family tree as taught by the Bible and makes him a descendant of the lower forms of life. This ... is a very vital matter. — William Jennings Bryan

I am no more proud of my career as an athlete than I am of the fact that I am a direct descendant of that noble warrior [Chief Black Hawk]. — Jim Thorpe

Jethro was the "priest of Midian" and the father-in-law of Moses (Exodus 3:1; 4:18). He was also called "Reuel" (Exodus 2:18) and is described as a Midianite in Numbers 10:29.
The original Midianites were probably descendants of Midian, one of Abraham's sons by Keturah (Genesis 25:1-4). The land where they lived then became known as "Midian" (Exodus 2:15). It is likely that the people who lived in the land of Midian were then all called Midianites, even if they were not descendants of Midian. For example, some descendants of Ishmael appear to be called Midianites (Genesis 37:25,28; Judges 8:24).
We don't know whether Jethro was a descendant of Midian, or whether he had some other ancestry but lived in the land of Midian.
In Judges 1:16, Jethro is described as a "Kenite" but that may not relate directly to his ancestry. The word keni in Aramaic means "smith" and it is thought that the Kenites may have been metal workers. — Rob J. Hyndman

The first heuristic addresses the asymmetry in rewards and punishment, or transfer of fragility between individuals. Ralph Nader has a simple rule: people voting for war need to have at least one descendant (child or grandchild) exposed to combat. For the Romans, engineers needed to spend some time under the bridge they built - something that should be required of financial engineers today. The English went further and had the families of the engineers spend time with them under the bridge after it was built. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Why do you care what happens to her? I thought we humans were vapors to you, here today and gone tomorrow."
"Caspida is . . . different. She reminds me of someone, someone I'd give my life for if I could."
"The queen?" he asks. "The one who died?"
"Roshana. My dear Ro." My voice is soft as a ripple on the water. "She once ruled the Amulens, and Caspida is her descendant. She has Roshana's strength of spirit, and I cannot look at her without thinking of my old friend. If she were to come to harm on my account . . . I could not bear that through the centuries." I already carry a mountain of shame, a constant reminder of that day on Mount Tissia.
Aladdin lifts a hand and brushes the hair back from my face. "You truly are remarkable, Zahra of the Lamp. — Jessica Khoury

When we were on trees, others had lived in skies.
When we reach skies, descendant of primitives will someday convey this message. — Toba Beta

I felt every part of that animal music, felt it eat me up and spit me out, and what emerged was a me a thousand times more powerful than Piper Vaughan. I was Piper Vaughan, guitar hero - spiritual descendant of Jimi Hendrix and proponent of pure anarchy. And I ROCKED. — Antony John

Don't settle for ordinary, go for the extraordinary ... Michael (Descendant) — L.J. Amodeo

I learned that not only am I a descendant of slaves, but that I am also a descendant of royalty, that there are politicians from the 1800s as well as Tuskegee Airmen in my lineage. — Cuba Gooding Jr.

Jesus is a descendant of David, the beloved of God. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God who was born into this world and died and rose again. Saint John calls him the Word and the Light. When he died, he did so as atonement for our sins, and when he rose, he did so to defeat the power and curse of death and hell on this once-holy world. Do you believe in him? — David Holdsworth

Muhammad said the Mahdi, who would someday come, would be a descendant of one of his wives (Fatimah), and would bear his name, ruling over Arabs. Across the Muslim world today, there is a call for the Islamic Caliphate to be restored, which has been vacant since Turkey abolished the Caliphate in 1924. — John Price

We, at least, are not loyal men: we confess to having more respect and honour for the raggedest child of the poorest labourer in Ireland today than for any, even the most virtuous, descendant of the long array of murderers, adulterers and madmen who have sat upon the throne of England. — James Connolly

Every outbreak across the globe today stems from a descendant of the medieval plague. — Hendrik Poinar

...'at that time men began to call on the name of the Lord' (Genesis 4:26b) ... Seth and his line feared God and called on his name. Lamech, Cain's descendant, called only on his wives to hear his boasting (Genesis 4:23). — Samuel Ngewa

I have lived in the redness of the stones that mark a path through my blood; I am the descendant of a forgotten race, but I carry in my hands the remnants of their fire. — Mohammed Khair-Eddine

Ketch all alone with a black crew from Malaita. And Romance lured and beckoned before Joan's eyes when she learned he was Christian Young, a Norfolk Islander, but a direct descendant of John Young, one of the original Bounty mutineers. The blended Tahitian and English blood showed in his soft — Jack London

Mutter Erde ist keine Maschine
Henry Red Cloud is the direct 5th generation descendant of Chief Red Cloud — Henry Red Cloud

Kaladin was the one who had changed, not they. He felt a strange dislocation, as if he'd allowed himself to forget - if only in part - the last nine months. He reached back across time, studying the man he had been. The man who'd still fought, and fought well. He couldn't be that man again - he couldn't erase the scars - but he could learn from that man, as a new squadleader learned from the victorious generals of the past. Kaladin Stormblessed was dead, but Kaladin Bridgeman was of the same blood. A descendant with potential. — Brandon Sanderson

Frederick's wit was impressive. When a descendant of Ghengis Khan, who was wreaking havoc in the Muslim world, wrote threateningly that the holy Roman Emperor should surrender his lands and come to his court to become one of his vassals, Frederick replied that he'd think about it and to please hold open the position of falconer. — Nancy Goldstone

Men have their intellectual ancestry, and the likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly flashing out in the features of a descendant, it may be after a gap of several centuries. In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past. — James Russell Lowell

If our future generations were much wilier than us,
then it might be them who have led us all this time,
to make decisions which fit to their pre-existence,
left us live in the world of uncertainty or by faith. — Toba Beta

Besides, he's mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children to till their fathers' lands for wages. That is the sole consideration which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives! — Emily Bronte

Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness. — Edith Sitwell

Is what makes you solid a part of you? If the answer is yes, then you are a child of the big bang and a descendant of explosions, collisions, catastrophes, stars, and galaxies.
The protons in your hand have been through every slam, every bash, every disaster, and every creative crash this cosmos has ever managed to throw their way. [...] The story of those cosmic calamities and material miracles is your biography. The story of the universe - from protons and suns to curiosity - is your history. — Howard Bloom

Here it is different, here the past is as alive as the present, the unpredictable cruel Stone Age coexists with the calculating, cool age of electronics - the two eras live in the same man, who is as much the descendant of Genghis Khan as he is the student of Edison ... if, that is, he ever comes into contact with Edison's world. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

My maternal grandmother had what might be described in a school report as a 'lively imagination.' She told us that she was a direct descendant of Sir Christopher Wren. — Jeremy Hardy

The idea that one can go to the fossil record and expect to empirically recover an ancestor-descendant sequence, be it of species, genera, families, or whatever, has been, and continues to be, a pernicious illusion. — Gareth J. Nelson

He may not have the eloquence of a ready tongue, but will have that eloquence which is of the heart. His concern in the study will be not merely to prepare sermons, but, even more, to prepare his own heart. And when he preaches it will not be in feeble whispers, but with the spiritual vitality of the prophets and apostles, of whom he is a lineal descendant. — Charles W. Koller

Mister MacKeltar, Drustan corrected for the umpteenth time, with a this-is-really-wearing-thin-but-I'm-determined-to-be-patient smile. No matter how many times he told Farley that he was not a laird, that he was simply Mr. MacKeltar, that it was Christopher (his modern-day descendant who lived up the road in the oldest castle on the land) who was actually laird, Farley refused to hear it. The eighty-something-year-old butler, who insisted he was sixty-two and who had obviously never before buttled in his life until the day he'd arrived on their doorstep, was determined to be a butler to a lord. Period. And he wasn't about to let Drustan interfere with that aspiration. — Karen Marie Moning

He'd been born into duty. As a demigod descendant, a death reaper, his first commitment was to serve the god of the underworld. Hades, as a conduit to usher evil souls to hell. — Zoe Forward

Conceiv'd out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism -personifying ill unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) -only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works -works in some respects greater than anything else ill recorded literature. — Walt Whitman

Ultimately I wanted to be a pioneer swimmer, a distant descendant of Scott, Amundsen and Hillary, except that I would be an explorer of the water. — Lewis Gordon

If anything is life-changing, being the descendant of a slave is. — Ntozake Shange

Okay. He had a point but it wasn't like I could tell him anything. I
could see me now: Guess what? You ever watch Clash of the Titans or
read any Greek fables? Well those gods are real and yeah, I'm sort of
a descendant of them. Kind of like the stepchild no one wants to claim.
Oh, and I hadn't even been around mortals until three years ago. Can
we still be friends? — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The human body represents to me the same universal innocence, timelessness and purity of all seed pods, suggesting the mother as well as the child, the parental as well as the descendant, conceived according to nature's longings. — Ruth Bernhard

An old paleontological in joke proclaims that mammalian evolution is a tale told by teeth mating to produce slightly altered descendant teeth. — Stephen Jay Gould

Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans three continents. The Book of Negroes recites the pain, misery and liberation of one African woman, Aminata Diallo, who was stolen from her homeland and sold into American slavery. Through Aminata, Hill narrates the terrifying story of slavery and puts at the centre a female experience of the African Diaspora. I wept upon reading this story. The Book of Negroes is courageous, breathtaking, simply brilliant. — Afua Cooper

The principal task of the messiah, who was popularly believed to be the descendant of King David, was to rebuild David's kingdom and reestablish the nation of Israel. Thus, to call oneself the messiah at the time of the Roman occupation was tantamount to declaring war on Rome. — Reza Aslan

But the United States is neither a Christian nation nor the exclusive home of any particular religious group. Non-Christians are not guests. We are as much hosts as any Mayflower-descendant Protestant. It is our home as well as theirs. And in a home with so many owners, there can be no official sectarian prayer. That is what the First Amendment is all about, and the first act by the new administration was in defiance of our Constitution. — Alan Dershowitz

We have overcome economic devastation, defeated mighty oppressors, and lifted up generation after generation of Americans. We can - and we will - do it again. For that is our birthright as members of the American family - white, black, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant, or descendant of the Founding Fathers themselves. — Brian Sandoval

As one descendant of a black cowboy explained, "We didn't write the books. We didn't produce the movies. So we were politely deleted." There is a conspicuous absence of the black cowboy recorded in the history of the American cattle-ranching industry. The role these men played in the settling of the Old West deserves scholarly attention.
As — Tricia Martineau Wagner

she hated and detested Nicholas with all the narrowness of mind and littleness of purpose worthy a descendant of the house of Squeers. — Charles Dickens

Who is the descendant of the slavemasters a descendant of slaves to fight other people in thier own country? — Muhammad Ali

Nicholas is sometimes compared with his half-crazy great-great-grandfather Paul, who was strangled by a camarilla acting in agreement with his own son, Alexander "the Blessed." These two Romanovs were actually alike in their distrust of everybody due to a distrust of themselves, their touchiness as of omnipotent nobodies, their feeling of abnegation, their consciousness, as you might say, of being crowned pariahs. But Paul was incomparably more colorful; there was an element of fancy in his rantings, however irresponsible. In his descendant everything was dim; there was not one sharp trait. Nicholas — Leon Trotsky

Corporatization is the descendant of industrialization. — Serj Tankian

It makes no difference to me whether I shoot you or you fall to your death."
"It does make a difference," I said, my voice small but confident. "You and I share the same blood." I lifted my hand precariously, showing him my birthmark. "I'm your descendant. If I sacrifice my blood, Patch will become human and you'll die. It's written in The Book of Enoch. — Becca Fitzpatrick

And that's the beginning of the primary conversation in African American literature, right there: the African descendant explaining to the European descendant about how white people's actions are affecting the lives of black people.* In — Mat Johnson

Think of it like this," he said quietly. "Do you want to be a descendant for the rest of your life? — Terry Pratchett

In many respects fascism not only is here but has been here for nearly a century. For what we call liberalism
the refurbished edifice of American Progressivism
is in fact a descendant and manifestation of fascism. — Jonah Goldberg

Tyson, Frank is a descendant of Poseidon."
"Brother!" Tyson crushed Frank in a hug.
Percy stifled a laugh. "Actually he's more like a great-great- ... Oh, never mind. Yeah, he's your brother."
"Thanks." Frank mumbled through a mouthful of flannel. — Rick Riordan

In the fall of 1932, Bergelson undertook the longest journey of his life. He traveled the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way through Siberia and beyond, disembarking just fifty miles shy of the border with China, in the budding Jewish autonomy of Birobidzhan. The Jews of Birobidzhan welcomed him grandly, as if he were a long-lost descendant of a royal Yiddish tribe. A plenary session of the settlement council convened in his honor. He toured the new collective farms in the company of local authorities. He participated, as a guest of honor, in the celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the October Revolution - an unprecedented role for a foreign national. — Masha Gessen

The seventeenth-century baby slept, as his nineteenth-century descendant does, in a cradle. Nothing could be prettier than the old cradles that have survived successive years of use with many generations of babies. — Alice Morse Earle

Besides, if I am truly immortal, I am my own grandchild, my own descendant, my own dynasty. I am not obliged to live on through what I pass down to others. — Tom Robbins

That tank," Bucktooth pointed at the gas gauge on the dashboard of the decidedly unfredneck-like '65 Dodge Dart, "is almost empty. We ain't going much farther."
"Indeed it is." A solemn Phosphate agreed. "I suggest we stop the car and weigh our options."
"What options?" Professor Buckley asked. "Why do-that is- we've been traveling up and down this path for over an hour without seeing anyone or encountering anything. Even the doughnut shop cannot be relocated. In light of this, what options do we have?"
It was difficult to argue with the ex-history teacher's typically alarmist position. Brisbane's reliable old automobile had indeed been expending its remaining fuel supply in what seemed to be a hopeless effort to exit the unnamed dirt path. After leaving the doughnut shop and the blonde presidential descendant who worked there, they'd been unable to find DeMohrenschildt Lane again, or any other side street. — Donald Jeffries

And as it went on I set it against the background of that other talk, and as I matched the two together I had no doubt that one was the descendant, the legitimate heir of the other. — Virginia Woolf

Wrong cannot have a legal descendant. — Thomas Paine

Vyacheslav and Marina chose a generic name designed to be devoid of meaning: BOHdVF260602. Although the name seems meaningless, BOHdVF260602 stands for "Biological Object Human descendant of the Voronins and Frolovas, born on June 26, 2002. — Adam Alter

If a man brings a good mind to what he reads he may become, as it were, the spiritual descendant to some extent of great men, and this link, this spiritual hereditary tie, may help to just kick the beam in the right direction at a vital crisis; or may keep him from drifting through the long slack times when, so to speak, we are only fielding and no balls are coming our way. — Rudyard Kipling

To see justice done, men were prepared to take the law into their own hands. In the Carolinas, bands of vigilantes or Regulators crisscrossed the territory in the late 1760s, stamping out local hooligans and waging war on interlopers. This vigilante attitude was epitomized by a Scots Borders descendant from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, named Captain William Lynch. He ruled as virtual dictator of his county, punishing wrongdoers and warning lawless elements that "we will inflict such corporal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained." "Lynch's Law," and the punishments and hangings it inflicted, also became part of American culture - an ugly part, but a legacy of a harsh world and a harsh, unforgiving people. — Arthur Herman

I come from the South Bronx - a true descendant of the melting pot. I grew up in a really mixed neighborhood; it was a very integrated life. — Al Pacino

What is it? something you live and breathe in like air? a kind of vacuum filled with wraithlike and indomitable anger and pride and glory at and in happenings that occurred and ceased fifty years ago? a kind of entailed birthright father and son and father and son of never forgiving General Sherman, so that forevermore as long as your childrens' children produce children you wont be anything but a descendant of a long line of colonels killed in Pickett's charge at Manassas? 'Gettysburg,' Quentin said. 'You cant understand it. You would have to be born there. — William Faulkner

Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals? — Ogden Nash

Of course, everyone in the New World is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, and immigrants have built America and continue to do so. Legal or illegal, they are almost universally good people who work to better their lot and that of their children. — Mark Helprin

About Sun Tzu himself this is all that Ssu-ma Ch'ien has to tell us in this chapter. But he proceeds to give a biography of his descendant, Sun Pin, born about a hundred years after his famous ancestor's death, and also the outstanding military genius of his time. — Sun Tzu

The truth is "#9dream" is a descendant of "Norwegian Wood". Both are ghost stories. "She" in "Norwegian Wood" curses you with loneliness. The "Two spirits dancing so strange" in "#9dream" bless you with harmony. But people prefer loneliness to harmony. — David Mitchell

How did you get hired?" "I checked the box on the application that said "descendant" by mistake. I'm dyslexic and I thought it said something else."
"Okay," I said, thinking that was the worst employment application mistake ever. "And they all believe him to be the true ruler of Fallen?"
"All the Mei-Bettys do. They're, like, obsessed with it. It's a little like restaurant-of-the-body-snatchers, you know?"
"Then why do you work there?" I asked. "Clearly, you figured out something was wrong with them."
"Duh, but it pays well and they provide room and board. I sorta needed the job and a place to stay. It's got free wifi," she said, as if that explained everything. — H.D. Smith

Wilier races had interbred with human race during immemorial.
Therefore no need to look for them on anywhere but in ourselves. — Toba Beta

The part of the Lake District that Beatrix Potter chose as her own was not only physically beautiful, it was a place in which she felt emotionally rooted as a descendant of hard-working north-country folk. The predictable routines of farm life appealed to her. There was a realism in the countryside that nurtured a deep connection. The scale of the villages was manageable. Yet the vast desolateness of the surrounding fells was awe-inspiring. It was mysterious, but easily imbued with fantasy and tamed by imagination. The sheltered lakes and fertile valleys satisfied her love of the pastoral. The hill farms and the sheep on the high fells demanded accountability. There was a longing in Beatrix Potter for association with permanence: to find a place where time moved slowly, where places remained much as she remembered them from season to season and from year to year. — Linda Lear

Sir Julian Huxley, one of the world's leading evolutionists, head of UNESCO, descendant of Thomas Huxley - Darwin's bulldog - said on a talk show, 'I suppose the reason we leaped at The Origin of Species was because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.'. — Julian Huxley

We have to bring in the railroad,' he said.
That was the first time the word had ever been heard in Macondo. Looking at the sketch that Aureliano Triste drew on the table and that was a direct descendant of the plans that Jose Arcadio Buendia had illustrated his project for solar warfare, Ursula confirmed her impression that time was going in a circle. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation ... Man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor. — Charles Darwin

Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons. — Criss Jami

I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 if you were black and looked back to your ancestors and saw nothing but slaves all the way back to 1619. Look forward another 50 or 60 years and saw nothing but slaves. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The forces of genetic mixing are so powerful that everyone in the world has Jewish ancestors, though the amount of DNA from those ancestors in a given individual may be small. In fact, everyone on earth is by now a descendant of Abraham, Moses, and Aaron
if indeed they existed. — Steve Olson

Fatness is a byproduct of the leisurely life your hard-working ancestors and the greatest minds of the Western world have been working to create for millennia They wanted you to have a life of plenty, a life without backbreaking work. Your great-great-great-grandfather would weep with joy at the sight of you half-conscious on a couch, having just shoveled a pile of fried noodles straight out of the takeout carton into your mouth after a busy day organizing the office's fantasy football league Surely my descendant has become a king! — Martin Cizmar

Every scientist is a descendant of Humboldt. We are all his family. — Emil Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond

The lawyer refused to tell me my brother's name, and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James - someone more talented than I: someone brilliant without even trying. — Mona Simpson

Joseph Smith often referred to himself in his "revelations" as "Enoch,"' claiming that he had been given this name by God. The Enoch of the legend was chosen to recover and preserve for mankind the sacred name of God; and Joseph Smith was allegedly chosen to recover and "restore" the everlasting gospel of God to the earth. Enoch buried the sacred record to preserve it just before a great disaster (the Flood), foreseeing that after the deluge "an Israelitish descendant would discover anew the sacred buried treasure." Enoch "placed a stone lid, or slab, over the cavity into the hill," exactly as Moroni did in the Book of Mormon when he buried his record as the only survivor of the disaster (great battle) that destroyed his entire nation. Joseph Smith, who recovered this record, claimed to be an Israelite, fitting the vision of Enoch even in this regard. — Ed Decker