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People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether you go forwards or backwards: you need to live your life as well as you can.

So we can't go backwards, we can only go where the evolutionary trajectory is taking us and attune our ideas about ourselves and our existence to that course.

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies.

I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.

Maybe if I go far enough back into my ancestry, I have African roots or something. I've got no idea.

We should not look down on our first ancestors.

Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment, although most of us don't even have the faintest idea about their lives, their trials, their hardships or challenges.