Native American Quotes

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  There is no death, only a change of worlds.

  Chief Seattle

  Change, Sympathy, Psychics

  Albert Furtwangler, Chief Seattle (1997). “Answering Chief Seattle”, p.25, University of Washington Press

  137 Copy quote

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• May the stars carry your sadness away, may the flowers fill your heart with beauty, may hope forever wipe away your tears. And, above all, may silence make you strong.

  Chief Dan George

  Stars, Flower, Condolences

  590 Copy quote
• 

  It does not require many words to speak the truth.

  Chief Joseph

  Truth, Reality, Broken Promises

  226 Copy quote

• All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

  Chief Seattle

  Men, Air, Tree

  Seattle (Chief) (1976). “Chief Seattle's Testimony”

  97 Copy quote

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• Earth does not belong to us; we belong to earth. Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.

  Chief Seattle

  Memories, Doe, Earth

  136 Copy quote

• When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

  Tecumseh

  Good Morning, Strength, Thanksgiving

  200 Copy quote

• It is the mothers not the warriors who create a people and guide their destiny.

  Luther Standing Bear

  Mother, Warrior, Destiny

  Luther Standing Bear (2006). “Land of the Spotted Eagle”, p.11, U of Nebraska Press

  117 Copy quote

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• If we must die, we die defending our rights.

  Sitting Bull

  Rights, India, Sitting

  239 Copy quote

• Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.

  Tecumseh

  Respect, People, Groveling

  91 Copy quote

• Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

  Standing Bear

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

  69 Copy quote

• No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided." We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave.

  Tecumseh

  Country, Children, Warrior

  145 Copy quote

• They say there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. But if you ask a Native American, that number is more like 300 million.

  David Letterman

  Country, Numbers, Illegal

  62 Copy quote

• What we did in the 1960s and early 1970s was raise the consciousness of white America that this government has a responsibility to Indian people. That there are treaties; that textbooks in every school in America have a responsibility to tell the truth. An awareness reached across America that if Native American people had to resort to arms at Wounded Knee, there must really be something wrong. And Americans realized that native people are still here, that they have a moral standing, a legal standing. From that, our own people began to sense the pride.

  Dennis Banks

  School, Responsibility, Pride

  51 Copy quote

• Things which do not grow and change are dead things.

  Louise Erdrich

  Change, Novelists, Growing

  59 Copy quote
• 

  I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures.

  Geronimo

  Break Up, Freedom, Light

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  126 Copy quote

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• 

  I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole earth will become One Circle again.

  Crazy Horse

  Color, Circles, Native Country

  293 Copy quote

• I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.

  Red Cloud

  Love, Life, Peace

  180 Copy quote

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

  Black Hawk

  Native Language, Looks, American Indian

  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

  145 Copy quote

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• Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesnt make a corporation a terrorist.

  Winona LaDuke

  Drinking, Water, Environmental

  "Canadian Oil Companies Trample on Our Rights" by Winona LaDuke, progressive.org. June 18, 2013.

  144 Copy quote

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• Take only memories, leave only footprints.

  Chief Seattle

  Inspirational, Travel, Memories

  75 Copy quote

• The secret of our success is that we never, never give up.

  Wilma Mankiller

  Inspirational, Moving On, Success

  95 Copy quote

• If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys.

  Chief Dan George

  Inspirational, Life, Animal

  339 Copy quote

• Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.

  Chief Seattle

  People, Dark Woods, Earth

  44 Copy quote

• Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

  Robert Orben

  Humorous, Profound, Insane

  "They Said What?". Manly Daily, August 05, 2008.

  37 Copy quote

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• Every human longs for peace and love.

  Hiawatha

  Love, Peace, Wish

  23 Copy quote