Just as incontestably as it was necessary to repay a debt was it necessary to keep the property in such a condition that his son, when he received it as a heritage, would say “thank you” to his father
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (1878)
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“Gus, did I hear correctly? Did I hear you say something about selling your heritage?” Mrs. Levy screamed.
John Kennedy Toole. A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)
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Part of my heritage, Which my dead father did bequeath to me.
William Shakespeare. Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608)
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He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.