“Greatness of name in the father oft-times overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first.”
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries
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Ben Jonson 93
English writer 1572–1637Related quotes

"Soul Blindness", as quoted Our Woman Workers: Biographical Sketches of Women Eminent in the Universalist Church for Literary, Philanthropic and Christian Work (1881) by E. R. Hanson.
Context: How near another's heart we oft may stand,
Yet all unknowing what we fain would know
Its heights of joy, its depths of bitter woe,
As, wrecked upon some desert island's strand,
They watch our white sails near and nearer grow;
Then we, who for their rescue death would dare,
Unheeding pass, and leave them to despair.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 368.

Press conference in London (1969), as quoted in A Land of Our Own : An Oral Autobiography (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242
Variant: When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.


“Great Expectations oft to nothing come.”
Fab. VIII: Of the Mountain in Labour
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)
“There is only so much space on the planet. Fathers perish to make room for sons.”
Afterwords on the Life of Kings, p. 434
The Boys Of Summer