Buffalo Quotes

• Cows run away from the storm while the buffalo charges toward it - and gets through it quicker. Whenever I’m confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment, I become the buffalo.

  Wilma Mankiller

  Inspirational, Running, Native American

  157 Copy quote

• What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.

  Crowfoot

  Life, Change, Death

  100 Copy quote

• The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers, he belongs just as the buffalo belonged.

  Luther Standing Bear

  Nature, Native American, Men

  Luther Standing Bear (2006). “Land of the Spotted Eagle”, p.247, U of Nebraska Press

  80 Copy quote

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• A cold wind blew on the prairie on the day the last buffalo fell. A death wind for my people.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Wind, People

  24 Copy quote

• My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways.

  Lalu Prasad Yadav

  Life, Mother, Horny

  49 Copy quote

• The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be. Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.

  Art Buchwald

  United States, Statistics, Dangerous

  Art Buchwald (1957). “The Brave Coward”

  35 Copy quote

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• Historically the buffalo had more influence on man than all other Plains animals combined. It was life, food, raiment, and shelter to the Indians. The buffalo and the Plains Indians lived together, and together passed away. The year 1876 marks practically the end of both.

  Walter Prescott Webb

  Animal, Men, Years

  Walter Prescott Webb (1959). “The Great Plains”, p.44, U of Nebraska Press

  11 Copy quote

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• The buffalo is a surprisingly stupid animal.

  Ellsworth Huntington

  Funny, Stupid, Animal

  Ellsworth Huntington (1920). “The Red Man's Continent: A Chronicle of Aboriginal America”, p.97, Library of Alexandria

  19 Copy quote

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• The extermination of the buffalo has been a veritable tragedy of the animal world.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Animal, Tragedy, World

  Theodore Roosevelt (2000). “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter”, p.169, Modern Library

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• Be the buffalo. Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee nation, once told me how the cow runs away from the storm while the buffalo charges directly toward it—and gets through it quicker. Whenever I'm confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment. I become the buffalo.

  Donna Brazile

  Running, Tough Times, African American

  35 Copy quote

• When a lion stalks a herd, he sneaks in close, lies down, and surveys them to choose his victim. He takes his time. The deer or buffalo have no idea he’s near. He finds his prey and then he explodes from his hiding place and grabs it. Even if another, perfectly serviceable animal ends up within his reach, he isn’t going to alter his course. He has chosen, and he would rather go hungry than change his mind.

  Ilona Andrews

  Lying, Animal, Ideas

  Ilona Andrews (2010). “Magic Strikes: A Kate Daniels Novel: 3”, p.33, Hachette UK

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• Yet technique matters, even so. God uses it, for a buffalo is not a leopard.

  James Dickey

  Writing, Technique, Leopards

  James Dickey (1984). “Sorties”, p.168, LSU Press

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• Ahh, my heart fell down when I began to see dead buffalo scattered all over our beautiful country, killed and skinned, and left to rot by white men, many, many hundreds of buffalo. ... Our hearts were like stones. And yet nobody believed, even then, that the white man could kill all the buffalo. Since the beginning of things there had always been so many!

  Pretty Shield

  Beautiful, Country, Heart

  19 Copy quote

• I had seen a herd of Buffalo, one hundred and twenty-nine of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching, but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.

  Isak Dinesen

  Morning, Eye, Dark

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

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• The strongest animals on earth are plant eaters. Every creature we've enlisted to do the work we couldn't handle - the horse, donkey, elephant, camel, water buffalo, ox, yak - is an herbivore... whose huge muscles were built from plant protein, and whose strong bones got that way, and stayed that way, from grazing on grass and eating other vegetables.

  Victoria Moran

  Horse, Strong, Animal

  14 Copy quote

• Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo.

  H. Rider Haggard

  Fighting, Blow, Lasts

  H. Rider Haggard (2015). “Allan Quatermain”, p.196, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and when there are no buffalo or other game I will send my children to hunt and live on prairie, for where an Indian is shut up in one place his body becomes weak.

  Sitting Bull

  Children, Games, Hunters

  "The Lance and the Shield" by Robert M. Utley, New York: Henry Holt and Co., (p. 206), 1993.

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• Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position themselves in front of their young. Giraffes stare over treetops, their huge brown eyes blinking, then lope away in seeming slow motion. But no elephants.

  Thomas French

  Zebras, Distance, Eye

  10 Copy quote

• A study conducted by the State University of New York at Buffalo Medical School suggested that in times of stress a dog is likely to be more help in calming you down than a spouse or partner. Most dog owners can guess the reason why: dogs never judge us and never compete with us.

  Marjorie Garber

  Friendship, Dog, New York

  Marjorie Garber (1997). “DOG LOVE”, Touchstone

  48 Copy quote

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• No person, I think, ever saw a herd of buffalo, of which a few were fat and the great majority lean. No person ever saw a flock of birds, of which two or three were swimming in grease, and the others all skin and bone.

  Henry George

  Swimming, Thinking, Two

  Henry George, Kenneth C. Wenzer (1999). “Our Land and Land Policy”, MSU Press

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• Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.

  Sitting Bull

  Country, Years, Forever

  Sitting Bull, Mark Diedrich (1998). “Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches”

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• I know we'll lead the league in defense.

  Rex Ryan

  League, Defense, Knows

  Rex Ryan's first press conference as coach of the Buffalo Bills, www.buffalobills.com. January 14, 2015.

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• I had the best buffalo horse that ever made a track.

  Buffalo Bill

  Horse, Track, Made

  Buffalo Bill (1879). “The Life of Hon. William F. Cody, Known as Buffalo Bill, the Famous Hunter, Scout, and Guide: An Autobiography”, p.172, U of Nebraska Press

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• At the rate science proceeds, rockets and missiles will one day seem like buffalo - slow, endangered grazers in the black pasture of outer space.

  Bernard Cooper

  Space, Black, One Day

  Bernard Cooper (1996). “Truth serum: memoirs”, Houghton Mifflin

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• So is the savage buffalo, especially delighting in dark places, where he can wallow in the mud and slake his thirst without much trouble; and here also we find the wild pig.

  John Hanning Speke

  Dark, Pigs, Savages

  John Hanning Speke (2007). “Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile”, p.25, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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