“He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.”

—  Robert Graves , book I, Claudius

Source: I, Claudius (1934), Ch. 5.
Context: My tutor I have already mentioned, Marcus Porcius Cato who was, in his own estimation at least, a living embodiment of that ancient Roman virtue which his ancestors had one after the other shown. He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about. He boasted particularly of Cato the Censor, who of all characters in Roman history is to me perhaps the most hateful, as having persistently championed the cause of "ancient virtue" and made it identical in the popular mind with churlishness, pedantry and harshness.

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Robert Graves 117
English poet and novelist 1895–1985

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