“Is it on your grandmother’s or grandfather’s side that you are descended from an ape?”
Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) Bishop in the Church of England
To Thomas Henry Huxley, debating Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/evolution/how-did-evol-theory-develop/the-story/index.html
“Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Source: A Mencken Chrestomathy
“They saw a Dream of Loveliness descending from the train.”
Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903) Union Army soldier
The Masher.
“Aren't most of you descended from pirates?”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II
Said in 1994 to an inhabitant of the Cayman Islands as quoted in "Long line of princely gaffes", BBC News (1 March 2002)
1990s
“I'm descended from a long line of preachers and policemen.”
Tom Robbins (1932) American writer
High Times interview (2002)
Context: I'm descended from a long line of preachers and policemen. Now, it's common knowledge that cops are congenital liars, and evangelists spend their lives telling fantastic tales in such a way as to convince otherwise rational people that they're factual. So, I guess I come by my narrative inclinations naturally. Moreover, I grew up in the rural South, where, although television has been steadily destroying it, there has always existed a love of colorful verbiage.
“The seraphs descend from heaven, in the solitudes of meditation, in the stillness of prayer.”
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American teacher and writer
I. SPIRIT, 10. Solitude
Orphic Sayings
Context: Solitude is Wisdom’s school. Attend then the lessons of your own soul; become a pupil of the wise God within you, for by his tuitions alone shall you grow into the knowledge and stature of the deities. The seraphs descend from heaven, in the solitudes of meditation, in the stillness of prayer.
“People talk too much. Humans aren't descended from monkeys. They come from parrots.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“Hume's skepticism, therefore, descends in a direct line from Cartesian mathematicism.”
Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) French historian and philosopher
Methodical Realism
