
“I am not my self, I am the result of all my ancestors.”
"Leonor Concha SMD Collection" Santiago Martínez Delgado Papers, Periódico la Patria de Cartagena p. 3 - Palabras de Martínez
One of two draft letters (25 July, 1938) written for Stanley Unwin to select as a response to his German publishers inquiry about his ancestry. The other letter refused to answer altogether on his ancestry; since the quoted letter persists, it seems that the other letter was sent.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
“I am not my self, I am the result of all my ancestors.”
"Leonor Concha SMD Collection" Santiago Martínez Delgado Papers, Periódico la Patria de Cartagena p. 3 - Palabras de Martínez
Letter to Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, 3 [5] April 1920, as quoted in Alice Calaprice, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010), p. 195; citing Israelitisches Wochenblatt, 42 September 1920, The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7, Doc. 37, and Vol. 9, Doc 368.<!-- obviously, parts of this can be taken out of context -->
1920s
"I Am What I Am," from La Cage aux Folles (1983) http://www.bassey.co.uk/blog/shirley_bassey/2006_08_07_peggyblog.html
No estoy seguro de que yo exista, en realidad. Soy todos los autores que he leído, toda la gente que he conocido, todas las mujeres que he amado. Todas las ciudades que he visitado, todos mis antepasados...
Source: El Pais, 1981 http://elpais.com/diario/1981/09/26/ultima/370303206_850215.html; translation: The Guardian, 2008 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/10/jorgeluisborges
Source: Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (1989), p. 21
“I am no What! I am only I …
In relation to you!”
Source: Echoes from the Bottomless Well (1985), p. 40
Context: "What are you?"
— I am no What! I am only I …
In relation to you!
“Translated: Ah, my faith! I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.”
Ah, ma foi! Je n'en sais rien. Moi je suis mon ancêtre.
When needled about his lack of noble ancestry, recounted in Sydney Smith, Saba Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith (1855), p. 245. Compare: "Curtius Rufus seems to me to be descended from himself", Tacitus recounting a saying of Tiberius, Annals, book xi. c. xxi. 16.; "To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker’s son] for his mean birth, 'My nobility,' said he, 'begins in me, but yours ends in you'", Plutarch Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders, Iphicrates (rejected by some critics as not a genuine work of Plutarch).
Source: New Brexit Party AM calls Tommy Robinson 'courageous' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-48295617 BBC News (16 May 2019)