Indian Wisdom Quotes - Page 4

• I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Men, White Man

  "God Is Red: A Native View of Religion". Book by Vine Deloria, Jr., 1972.

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• [last words] What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

  Crowfoot

  Sunset, Native American, Firefly

  "Aging in the Modern World: Selections from the Literature of Aging for Pleasure and Instruction". Book by ‎Clark Tibbitts, p. 222, 1957.

  17 Copy quote

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• All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Native American, Web Of Life, Earth Day

  Seattle (Chief) (1980). “How can one sell the air?: the manifesto of an Indian chief”, Book Publishing Company (TN)

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• We know our lands have now become more valuable. The white people think we do not know their value; but we know that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it are soon worn out and gone.

  Canasatego

  Native American, Thinking, Land

  10 Copy quote

• Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Men, White

  60 Copy quote

• The first peace, which is the most important,
  is that which comes within the souls of people
  when they realize their relationship,
  their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
  and when they realize that at the center of the universe
  dwells the Great Spirit,
  and that this center is really everywhere,
  it is within each of us.

  Black Elk

  Inspirational, Relationship, Wisdom

  "The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux". Book by Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown, 1953.

  276 Copy quote

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• 

  Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.

  Chief Joseph

  Life, Strength, Teacher

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

  204 Copy quote

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• Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

  Tecumseh

  Death, Song, Hero

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

  63 Copy quote

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• It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Animal, Yield

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

  146 Copy quote

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• If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.

  Chief Joseph

  Mother, Teacher, Brother

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

  225 Copy quote

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• Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology.... has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents the slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again? The earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there.

  William Commanda

  Native American, Technology, Two

  49 Copy quote

• Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Life, Lonely, Nature

  206 Copy quote

• If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace.

  Chief Joseph

  Native American, Men, White

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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• The time will soon be here when my grandchild will long for the cry of a loon, the flash of a salmon, the whisper of spruce needles, or the screech of an eagle. But he will not make friends with any of these creatures and when his heart aches with longing, he will curse me. Have I done all to keep the air fresh? Have I cared enough about the water? Have I left the eagle to soar in freedom? Have I done everything I could to earn my grandchild's fondness?

  Chief Dan George

  Native American, Heart, Grandchildren

  496 Copy quote

• We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.

  Tom Brown, Jr.

  Nature, Native American, Owl

  87 Copy quote

• We were like deer. They were like grizzly bear.

  Chief Joseph

  Native American, Grizzly Bears, Deer

  13 Copy quote

• Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

  Tecumseh

  Lonely, Morning, Lying

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

  112 Copy quote

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• If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Heart, Men

  "I have spoken; American history through the voices of the Indians". Book by Virginia Armstrong, Chicago, Sage Books, 1971.

  215 Copy quote

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• Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

  Black Elk

  Moving, Native American, Circles

  Black Elk (2000). “Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux”, Bison Books

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• How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

  Black Hawk

  Native American, Native Language, Looks

  Black Hawk, John B. Patterson (1836). “Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk: With an account of the late war”, p.97

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• Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.

  Black Elk

  Inspirational, Honesty, Native American

  39 Copy quote

• Help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence.

  Robert Muller

  Attitude, Native American, Silence

  19 Copy quote

• The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within.

  Fritjof Capra

  Science, Reality, Views

  Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi (2014). “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, p.286, Cambridge University Press

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• The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Philosophy, Feel Better

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Excursions (Annotated Edition)”, p.27, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Race, Europe, Roots

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “The World as Will and Representation”, p.357, Courier Corporation

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