Do not pride yourself on the nobility of your birth, for that belongs
to your father; join to your hereditary virtues those which you have
acquired recently. By this union you will be truly noble. Do not feel
elated over the nobility of your father, if you can not draw pride from
that which is in yourself; for the glory of your ancestors is vain if
you have not a personal glory. There is the same difference between the
fame of your ancestors and your own fame that there is between your
food of yesterday and of to-day; for the feast that has passed can not
calm the hunger of to-day, and still less can it provide for the days
which follow.