Indian Quotes - Page 24

• The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: "Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice!

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Sweet, Morning, Thinking

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• I have been only the humblest jugglers-with-facts; and that, in a country where the truth is what it is instructed to be, reality quite literally ceases to exist, so that everything becomes possible except what we are told is the case; and maybe this was the difference between my Indian childhood and Pakistani adolescence--that in the first I was beset by an infinity of alternative realities, while in the second I was adrift, disoriented, amid an equally infinite number of falsenesses, unrealities and lies.

  Salman Rushdie

  Country, Lying, Reality

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• The inferior position of blacks, the exclusion of Indians from the new society, the establishment of supremacy for the rich and powerful in the new nation--all this was already settled in the colonies by the time of the Revolution. With the English out of the way, it could now be put on paper, solidified, regularized, made legitimate by the Constitution of the United States.

  Howard Zinn

  Powerful, United States, Paper

  Howard Zinn (2014). “A People's History of the United States”, p.80, Pan Macmillan

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• The Constitution. . . illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.

  Howard Zinn

  Law, People, Support

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.99, Routledge

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• Mercy is not a proper Indian name."..........."Rash Coyote Who Runs With Wolf. We could shorten it to Dinner Woman.

  Patricia Briggs

  Running, Names, Coyotes

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• The Hopi Indians thought that the world’s religions each contained one spiritual thread, and that these threads are always seeking each other, wanting to join. When all the threads are finally woven together they will form a rope that will pull us out of this dark cycle of history and into the next realm.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Spiritual, Dark, Together

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.197, A&C Black

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• Sometimes she wore Levi's with white-suede fringe sewn down the legs and a feathered Indian headdress, sometimes old fifties' taffeta dresses covered with poetry written in glitter, or dresses made of kids' sheets printed with pink piglets or Disney characters.

  Francesca Lia Block

  Character, Kids, White

  Francesca Lia Block (2009). “Dangerous Angels: Five Weetzie Bat Books”, p.7, Harper Collins

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• Ialways think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I'm never quite sure why we eat Turkey like everybody else. (101)

  Sherman Alexie

  Mean, Thinking, Years

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• And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either. We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly.

  Sherman Alexie

  Girl, Dream, Fun

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• Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Amore or Pyar makes every man a poet, a princess of peasant girl if only for second eyes of man and woman meets.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Girl, Country, Princess

  "Shantaram". Book by Gregory David Roberts, 2003.

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• Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.

  Nancy Mitford

  Girl, Widows, May

  Love in a Cold Climate (1949) pt. 1, ch. 2

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• Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum. Set you down this, And say besides that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by th' throat the circumcised dog And smote him thus.

  William Shakespeare

  Dog, Jealous, Eye

  'Othello' (1602-4) act 5, sc. 2, l. 338

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• The American Indians were Communists. They were. Every anthropologist will tell you they were Communists. No rich, no poor. If somebody needed something the community chipped in.

  Pete Seeger

  Teamwork, Community, Rich

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• Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

  Edward Abbey

  Philosophy, Buddhism, Common Sense

  Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

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• Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers. If a person wanted to get to the moon, there is a way; it all depended on whether you knew the directions, on whether you knew the story of how others before you had gone. He had believed in the stories for a long time, until the teachers at Indian school taught him not to believe in that kind of "nonsense". But they had been wrong.

  Leslie Marmon Silko

  Teacher, Distance, Believe

  "Ceremony". Book by Leslie Marmon Silko, 1977.

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• To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature - the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy grades, the water, the soil, the air itself.

  Dee Brown

  Air, Water, Bird

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• The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time? Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world?

  Jeanette Winterson

  Past, Reality, Light

  Jeanette Winterson (2007). “Sexing the Cherry”, p.9, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• My money's on the big Indian,' someone was saying. I peeked up to see that Tyler, Mike, Austin and Ben had there heads bent together, deep in conversation. 'Yeah,' Mike whispered. 'Did you see the size of that Jacob kid? I think he could take Cullen down.' Mike seemed pleased by the idea.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Kids, Thinking, Ideas

  Stephenie Meyer (2009). “Eclipse”, p.59, Hachette UK

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• She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Teacher, Strong, Home

  The Scarlet Letter ch. 18 (1850)

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• To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, (or for that matter anti-Indian, or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you're not a Bushie, you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not Good, you're Evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

  Arundhati Roy

  Hate, Evil, Imagination

  Arundhati Roy (2003). “War Talk”, p.50, South End Press

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• You'll be found, your nickels, dimes and Indian-heads fused by electroplating. Abe Lincolns melted into Miss Columbias, eagles plucked raw on the backs of quarters, all run to quicksilver in your jeans. More! Any boy hit by lightning, lift his lid and there on his eyeball, pretty as the Lord's Prayer on a pin, find the last scene the boy ever saw! A box-Brownie photo, by God, of that fire climbing down the sky to blow you like a penny whistle, suck your soul back up along the bright stair!

  Ray Bradbury

  Running, Prayer, Blow

  Ray Bradbury (2013). “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, p.10, Harper Collins

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• Never has America lost a war ... But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies.

  Vine Deloria Jr.

  Country, War, Successful

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• The Indian danced on alone. The crowd clapped up the beat. The Indian danced with a chair. The crowd went crazy. The band faded. The crowd cheered. The Indian held up his hands for silence as if to make a speech. Looking at the band and then the crowd, the Indian said, "Well, what're you waiting for? Let's DANCE.

  Robert Fulghum

  Crazy, Hands, Waiting

  Robert Fulghum (2004). “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things”, p.124, Ballantine Books

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• It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. . . . Children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. . . . The Indians in their simplicity literally give away all that they have—to relatives, to guests of other tribes or clans, but above all to the poor and the aged, from whom they can hope for no return.

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Children, Native American, Generosity

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• Indians do not hinder the progress of their dead by embalming or tight coffining. When the spirit has gone they give the body back to the earth. the earth welcomes the body-coaxes new life and beauty from it, hurries over what men shudder at. Lovely tender herbage bursts from the graves, swiftly, exulting over corruption.

  Emily Carr

  Men, Giving, Lovely

  Emily Carr, Doris Shadbolt (1993). “The Emily Carr Omnibus”, University of Washington Press

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