One who is proud of ancestry is like a turnip; there is nothing good of him but that which is underground

A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground.

Say, when the ground our father Adam till'd, And mother Eve the humble distaff held, Who then his pedigree presumed to trace, Or challenged the prerogative of place? [Lat., Primus Adam duro cum vertet arva ligone, Pensaque de vili deceret Eva colo: Ecquis in hoc poterat vir nobilis orbe videri? Et modo quisquam alios ante locandue erir?

Born is a Cellar, . . . and living in a Garret.

Perrin had adopted the name Newark for his project, after the family's New Jersey ancestry, and if he went ahead with his town location, the ranchers laughed, the name would prove to be apt. Anybody foolish enough to actually buy the land would need an ark to reach it. Perrin ignored the jokes, ... The Centennial History of Newark.

He who boasts of his ancestry praises the merits of another