Indigenous People Quotes

• Indigenous people made huge contributions to this country. The biggest is in sharing the land and resources. People need to see that, understand that. Indigenous people should be viewed as the founding peoples of this land.

  Perry Bellegarde

  Country, People, Indigenous

  Source: www.macleans.ca

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Although we are in different boats you in your boat and we in our canoe we share the same river of life.

  Oren Lyons

  Rivers, Diversity, Lacrosse

  48 Copy quote

• We must respect each other's right to choose a collective destiny, and the opportunity to develop the legal and political rights for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples so that we may enjoy the right to maintain our culture, our heritage and our land, as a united Australia.

  Jackie Huggins

  Compassion, Opportunity, Destiny

  55 Copy quote

• Indigenous people believe that Man belongs to the World; civilized people believe that the World belongs to Man.

  Daniel Quinn

  Believe, Men, People

  57 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, Native American, People

  56 Copy quote

• We are all indigenous people on this planet, and we have to reorganize to get along.

  Rebecca Adamson

  People, Planets, Indigenous

  16 Copy quote

• We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.

  Rigoberta Menchu

  Zoos, Past, Racism

  212 Copy quote

• We seem to have lost the wisdom of the indigenous people, which dictated that in any major decision, the first consideration was 'How will this decision we're making today affect our people in the future? These days, decisions are made based on the bottom line.

  Jane Goodall

  People, Decision, Environmental

  7 Copy quote

• For Indigenous peoples , the impact of separating us from our heritage goes directly to the heart that pumps life through our peoples. To expect a people to be able to enjoy their culture without their cultural heritage and their sacred belongings is equivalent to amputating their legs and digging up the ground and asking them to run a marathon.

  Mick Dodson

  Leadership, Running, Heart

  24 Copy quote

• I resolutely believe that respect for diversity is a fundamental pillar in the eradication of racism, xenophobia and intolerance. There is no excuse for evading the responsibility of finding the most suitable path toward the elimination of any expression of discrimination against indigenous peoples.

  Rigoberta Menchu

  Respect, Xenophobia, Believe

  93 Copy quote

• I support the indigenous people anywhere in the planet

  Edward James Olmos

  People, Support, Planets

  18 Copy quote

• Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions.

  Malcolm Fraser

  People, Victim, Found

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

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people.

  Steven Biko

  People, Minorities, Facts

  145 Copy quote

• Through consciousness, our minds have the power to change our planet and ourselves. It is time we heed the wisdom of the ancient indigenous people and channel our consciousness and spirit to tend the garden and not destroy it.

  Bruce H. Lipton

  Garden, People, Mind

  "Has Modern Science Bankrupted Our Souls?" by Bruce Lipton, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 2, 2011.

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• The indigenous peoples understand that they have to recover their cultural identity, or to live it if they have already recovered it. They also understand that this is not a favor or a concession, but simply their natural right to be recognized as belonging to a culture that is distinct from the Western culture, a culture in which they have to live their own faith.

  Samuel Ruiz

  Understanding, Identity, Western Culture

  9 Copy quote

• In every Indigenous community I've been in, they absolutely do want community infrastructure and they do want development, but they want it on their own terms. They want to be able to use their national resources and their assets in a way that protects and sustains them. Our territories are our wealth, the major assets we have. And Indigenous people use and steward this property so that they can achieve and maintain a livelihood, and achieve and maintain that same livelihood for future generations.

  Rebecca Adamson

  People, Community, Generations

  11 Copy quote

• As it has for America's other indigenous peoples, I believe the United States must fulfill its responsibility to Native Hawaiians.

  Daniel Kahikina Akaka

  Believe, Responsibility, America

  22 Copy quote

• At the end of the day, these are issues that need to be discussed: femicides, among other things - immigrant rights, women's' rights, indigenous people's rights, animal rights, Mother Earth's rights. If we don't talk about these topics, then we have no place in democracy. It won't exist. Democracy isn't just voting; it's relegating your rights.

  Ruben Isaac Albarran Ortega

  Mother, Animal, Voting

  Source: www.rollingstone.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good government is one with a duty to help everyone, to maximise his or her potential: Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and our forgotten families.We will not leave anyone behind.

  Warren Mundine

  Government, People, Helping

  5 Copy quote

• We are now facing a difficult situation in Peru, where there are attempts to cut back the territorial rights of the indigenous peoples, including moves to divide, fragment and privatise our communal organisations. Now more than ever, it is a matter of urgency for us to consolidate our own indigenous alternatives for development.

  Evaristo Nugkuag

  Moving, Cutting, Rights

  16 Copy quote

• For Indigenous people, the goal for our land is definitely about protection, but it's also about use. We see ourselves as so integrated with our territory that our protection is tied to our use and our use is tied to our protection. We use the resources on our territory to live.

  Rebecca Adamson

  Land, People, Goal

  7 Copy quote

• The true essence of reconciliation is more than making friends with nonindigenous people. Our motto is united Australia, one that respects the land and the heritage of its indigenous peoples and provides justice and equity for all. I think reconciliation is about changing the structures that govern us and trying to influence opinion leaders in whatever way we can.

  Jackie Huggins

  Thinking, Essence, Australia

  18 Copy quote

• I'd like to talk about free markets. Information in the computer age is the last genuine free market left on earth except those free markets where indigenous people are still surviving. And that's basically becoming limited.

  Russell Means

  People, Age, Earth

  16 Copy quote

• The more I consider the condition of the white men, the more fixed becomes my opinion that, instead of gaining, they have lost much by subjecting themselves to what they call the laws and regulations of civilized socieities.

  Tomochichi

  Native American, Men, White

  63 Copy quote

• For the Amahuaca, the Koyukon, the Apache, and the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Australia - as for numerous other indigenous peoples - the coherence of human language is inseparable from the coherence of the surrounding ecology, from the expressive vitality of the more-than-human terrain. It is the animate earth that speaks; human speech is but a part of that vaster discourse.

  David Abram

  Expression, Australia, Vitality

  David Abram (2012). “The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World”, p.179, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

  Show source