Friendships that are purely of our own acquiring ordinarily carry it above those to which the communication of climate or of blood oblige us. Nature has placed us in the world free and unbound; we imprison ourselves in certain straits.

Montaigne

While sitting at the fireside in the winter, at ease on soft couches, well fed, sipping tasty wine and nibbling tidbits, it is then that a host may duly inquire of his guest:  Who are you among men, and whence do you come?

Xenophanes, (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics)

His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of all experience, material and moral.  Such an appeal will touch him.  The images of other males of his blood will repel him.  He will see in them grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself.

James Joyce, Ulysses