Native American Quotes - Page 3

• I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation. And we must continue to understand where we are. And we stand between the mountain and the ant, somewhere and there only, as part of the Creation.

  Oren Lyons

  Eagles, Understanding, Mountain

  "Animal Grace: Can Humans Rise to the Call?" by Sheila Shayon, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 3, 2009.

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• 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

  Men, White, Rights

  60 Copy quote

• 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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• He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other different desires.

  Sitting Bull

  Heart, Wish, Desire

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

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• Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

  Sitting Bull

  Fake People, Men, Sight

  169 Copy quote

• The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

  Black Elk

  Stars, Wind, Sky

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

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• I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits will come to their bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers and be ready to meet them in the bosom of our mother.

  Wovoka

  Mother, Father, Home

  25 Copy quote

• I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

  Black Elk

  Mother, Children, Father

  "Black Elk Speaks". Book by John Gneisenau Neihardt, 1932.

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• When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear, when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them.

  Chief Seattle

  Inspirational, Life, Warrior

  65 Copy quote

• Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that, "thought comes before speech."

  Luther Standing Bear

  Meaningful, Space, Talking

  90 Copy quote

• As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I became civilized.

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Children, Giving, Grace

  10 Copy quote

• Since the beginning, Native Peoples lived a life of being in harmony with all that surrounds us. It is a belief that all humankind are related to each other. Each has a purpose, spirit and sacredness. It is an understanding with the Great Spirit or Creator that we will follow these ways. And in this understanding we believe we are related to all other living species.

  Dennis Banks

  Believe, People, Understanding

  58 Copy quote

• You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest.

  Wovoka

  Mother, Cutting, Knives

  62 Copy quote

• All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.

  Sherman Alexie

  Spiritual, Thinking, Ideas

  52 Copy quote

• 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

  Heart, Grandchildren, Air

  496 Copy quote

• My son, you are now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. By the ceremony performed this day, every drop of white blood was washed from your veins; you were taken into the Shawnee Nation.

  Chief Blackfish

  Taken, Son, White

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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, Circles, Childhood

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

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• You have driven me from the East to this place, and I have been here two thousand years or more....My friends, if you took me away from this land it would be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land. I wish to be an old man here....I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father. Though he would give me a million dollars or more I would not give to him this land....When people want to slaughter cattle they drive them along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us....My children have been exterminated; my brother has been killed.

  Standing Bear

  Brother, Children, Father

  9 Copy quote

• We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now... but it will grow again... like the trees.

  Chief Joseph

  Dust, Tree, Village

  118 Copy quote

• It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Taken, Land, Feet

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.412

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• Although wrongs have been done to me, I live in hopes. I have not got two hearts....Now we are together again to make peace. My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends have advised me to do. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses and everything else, it is hard for me to believe the white men any more.

  Black Kettle

  Horse, Believe, Heart

  "Who is the Savage?" by Black Kettle, www.pbs.org. 2001.

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• If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.

  Black Elk

  Would Be, Foolish, Holes

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

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• When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people.

  Wovoka

  Lying, Fighting, Long

  54 Copy quote

• If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the... present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!

  Tom Brown, Jr.

  Children, Journey, Civilization

  54 Copy quote

• Grandfather says that when your friends die you must not cry. You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight. Do right always. It will give you satisfaction in life.

  Wovoka

  Hurt, Fighting, Satisfaction In Life

  38 Copy quote