“For those things which were done either by our fathers, or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, we can scarcely call our own.”

— Ovid , Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses (Transformations)

Original

Nam genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For those things which were done either by our fathers, or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, we can sc…" by Ovid?

Ovid 120

Roman poet -43–17 BC

Related quotes

“And yet these things for which we should strive eagerly, things so closely akin to ourselves, so truly our own, we treat with great slackness and constant indifference and thus destroy the germs of excellence, while those things in which deficiency were a merit we desire with an insatiable yearning.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

71.
Every Good Man is Free

“We are resorting to this authenticity in order to rediscover our soul, which colonization had almost erased from our memories and which we are seeking in the tradition of our ancestors.”

Mobutu Sésé Seko (1930–1997) President of Zaïre

Lamb, p. 45

“Human beings are not children of the sun. They are children of the jungle. We have in our natures many things that we would be a great deal better off without instincts and ways of acting which we would never have included in ourselves in the world if we had had the privilege of choosing just what was to go into our natures. These instincts and ways of acting are vestigial. They were useful to our ancestors, but owing to changes in surroundings they are not useful to us.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Vestigial Instincts in Man", pp. 127–128
Savage Survivals (1916), Savage Survivals in Higher Peoples (Continued)

“As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America. has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 257.

“We ourselves of the present age, chose our common law, and consented to the most ancient Acts of Parliament, for we lived in our ancestors 1,000 years ago, and those ancestors are still living in us.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1204.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

“Our ancestors were very rich and eminent people, and they left us an enormous inheritance, which we have completely forgotten, especially since the time when we began to consider ourselves the descendants of a monkey.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

A New Model of the Universe (1932)

“Once again, Jesus calls those who follow him to share his passion. How can we convince the world by our preaching of the passion when we shrink from that passion in our own lives?”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142.
Context: The passion of Christ is the victory of divine love over the powers of evil, and therefore it is the only supportable basis for Christian obedience. Once again, Jesus calls those who follow him to share his passion. How can we convince the world by our preaching of the passion when we shrink from that passion in our own lives? On the cross Jesus fulfilled the law he himself established and thus graciously keeps his disciples in the fellowship of his suffering.