Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

We must strive to become good ancestors.

the first responsibility of a human
being is to be a better ancestor.

It’s more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants. Too many people spend their lives being custodians of the past instead of stewards of the future. We worry about making our parents proud when we should be focused on making our children proud. The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors — it’s to improve conditions for our successors.

Are we being good ancestors?

Our first and foremost duty is to show ourselves worthy of our ancestors and their achievements. And that we can only do by an undeviating adherence to the paths which they traced out for our guidance.

Be a good ancestor. Do something a future generation will thank you for. A simple thing is to plant a tree.

I regarded the conservation of ancient monuments as one of the primary obligations of Government. We have a duty to our forerunners, as well as to our contemporaries and to our descendants,—nay, our duty to the two latter classes in itself demands the recognition of an obligation to the former, since we are the custodians for our own age of that which has been bequeathed to us by an earlier, and since posterity will rightly blame us if, owing to our neglect, they fail to reap the same advantages that we have been privileged to enjoy.

It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.

Your first duty, in completing your service to your race, is to feel within you all your ancestors. Your second duty is to throw light on their onrush and to continue their work. Your third duty is to pass on to your son the great mandate to surpass you.

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.

You have a big responsibility of being exemplary to your children. It is very important for generations to come. It’s our responsibility to give good values to our children.

...the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.

The descendants of our great forebears...let them symbolize all that is noble in our nation."