"Royalty" (1964)
E. L. Wisty
Context: We've all got royal blood in our veins, you know. It's the best place for it in my view. We've all got a little bit of royal blood in our veins, we're all in line for the succession, and if nineteen million, four hundred thousand, two hundred and eight people die, I'll be king tomorrow. It's not very likely but its a nice thought and helps keep you going.
“Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins”
Source: The Merchant of Venice
“You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah.”
Urban Hymns (1997)
Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)
“The blood of three oppressed races runs in my veins.”
As quoted in [Paul Lafargue and the Founding of French Marxism, 1842-1882, Derfler, Leslie, Harvard University Press, 1991, 11, https://books.google.com/books?id=L_E_OR6owEEC&pg=PA11]
“The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.”
Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: I have just been talking about forces of potential destruction that mankind has developed, and how we might control them. It is equally important that we remember the beneficial forces that we have evolved over the ages, and how to hold fast to them.
One of those constructive forces is enhancement of individual human freedoms through the strengthening of democracy, and the fight against deprivation, torture, terrorism and the persecution of people throughout the world. The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.
Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity, and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.
I believe with all my heart that America must always stand for these basic human rights — at home and abroad. That is both our history and our destiny.
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.
Ours was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea. Our social and political progress has been based on one fundamental principle — the value and importance of the individual. The fundamental force that unites us is not kinship or place of origin or religious preference. The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.
Speech in Westminster Palace Hotel (23 May 1878), quoted in The Times (24 May 1878), p. 12
1870s
“You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins.”
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Masters of War
