Native Quotes - Page 5

• 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

• Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

  Standing Bear

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

  69 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, Native American, Space

  89 Copy quote

• A lot of things occurred to me with shamans in Peru.There were a number of different kinds of experiences that you learn from doing ritual and taking ayahuasca [a common tropical forest hallucinogen] is the key to understanding the native consciousness and perception of the world with the Peruvian shamans that you wouldn't get unless you had been with them, but every shamanic tradition, including the Native American tradition of medicine and cleansing ritual, like the Sun Dance or the sweat lodge.

  Fred Alan Wolf

  Native American, Ayahuasca, Sweat

  Source: www.edgemagazine.net

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• 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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• Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

  Tecumseh

  Wise, Native American, Abuse

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

  52 Copy quote

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• 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, Native American

  145 Copy quote

• He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.

  Seneca the Younger

  Native American, American Indian, All Alone

  9 Copy quote

• Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.

  Black Elk

  Strong, 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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• Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.

  Chief Seattle

  Native American, People, World

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

  8 Copy quote

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• All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth.

  Chief Seattle

  Children, Native American, Web Of Life

  Chief Seattle, “This we know”

  48 Copy quote

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• The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.

  Luther Standing Bear

  Wise, Native American, Heart

  Luther Standing Bear (1978). “Land of the Spotted Eagle”, p.197, U of Nebraska Press

  116 Copy quote

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• I was born where there were no enclosures.

  Geronimo

  Native American, Apaches, Born

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

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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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• A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Motivational, Dog, Struggle

  393 Copy quote

• Happily for us, the fundamental Christian message concerns not what we ought to do, but what God has done and what God is willing to do. In fellowship with Him and with others who are likewise trying to be like Him, we can be lifted up above our native possibilities.

  Hugh Martin

  Christian, Trying, Fundamentals

  8 Copy quote

• 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

• To say nothing is out here is incorrect; to say the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth.

  William Least Heat-Moon

  Native American, Light, Space

  Edgar I. Ailor, William Least Heat-Moon (2012). “BLUE HIGHWAYS Revisited”, p.85, University of Missouri Press

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• The most Indian thing about the Indian is surely not his moccasins or his calumet, his wampum or his stone hatched, but traits of character and sagacity, skill, or passion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Passion, Native American, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson, Waldo Emerson Forbes (1911). “Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1872 [1876] Ed”

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• But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.

  Black Elk

  Native American, Eye, Men

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

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• Silence,they say,is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is the message,just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out and resonate in every word and deed. Yes,become who you are. There's no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you are. You are your own comeuppance. You become your own message. You are the message. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

  Leonard Peltier

  Horse, Crazy, Native American

  Leonard Peltier (2016). “Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance”, p.216, St. Martin's Griffin

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• How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the Earth is sacred to my people, every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clear and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.

  Chief Seattle

  Brother, Horse, Memories

  "Flow: For Love of Water". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 2008.

  189 Copy quote

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• 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, Native American, Land

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

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• I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Spirit, Knows

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

  54 Copy quote

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• I was very sorry when I found out that your intentions were good and not what I supposed they were.

  Sitting Bull

  Im Sorry, Native American, I Am Sorry

  39 Copy quote