Native America Quotes

• Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

  Chief Seattle

  Dream, Native American, Heart

  11 Copy quote

• Treat all men alike.... give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who is born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. Let me be a free man...free to travel... free to stop...free to work...free to choose my own teachers...free to follow the religion of my Fathers...free to think and talk and act for myself.

  Dee Brown

  Running, Teacher, Father

  6 Copy quote

• Suppose a white man should come to me and say, "Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them." I say to him, "No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them." Then he goes to my neighbor and says to him, "Joseph has some good horses. I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell." My neighbor answers, "Pay me the money and I will sell you Joseph's horses." The white man returns to me and says, "Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them." If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them.

  Chief Joseph

  I Like You, Horse, Native American

  Arguing against the right of the US Government to force his people to leave their lands, 1876.

  184 Copy quote

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• The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was. The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it.

  Chief Joseph

  Country, Native American, Men

  36 Copy quote

• I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.

  Black Elk

  Beautiful, Dream, Children

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

  140 Copy quote

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• Our fathers gave us many laws which they had learned from their
  fathers. These laws were good.

  Chief Joseph

  Father, Native American, Law

  6 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, Native American, Journey

  53 Copy quote

• Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. 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

  Native American, Blessing, Circles

  468 Copy quote

• Our land is everything to us.... I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember that our grandfathers paid for it - with their lives.

  John Wooden

  Native American, Land, Grandparent

  7 Copy quote
• 

  One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.

  Crazy Horse

  Native American, Journey, Hiking

  "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". Book by Dee Brown. Chapter 12, 1970.

  238 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

  113 Copy quote

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• The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me. The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me. The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me. The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me. And my heart soars.

  Chief Dan George

  Morning, Nature, Stars

  Chief Dan George, “My Heart Soars”

  529 Copy quote

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• We do not want churches. They will teach us to quarrel about God.

  Chief Joseph

  Religion, Church, Want

  23 Copy quote

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

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Children, Native American, Giving

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  24 Copy quote

• We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as wild. Earth was beautiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.

  Luther Standing Bear

  Beautiful, Native American, Blessing

  Luther Standing Bear (2006). “My People the Sioux”, p.17, U of Nebraska Press

  61 Copy quote

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• 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, Native American, Cutting

  61 Copy quote

• I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior.

  Oren Lyons

  Nature, Native American, Eagles

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

  14 Copy quote

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• Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pcanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.

  Tecumseh

  Summer, Powerful, Native American

  Quoted in Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)

  64 Copy quote

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• Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun. Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, 'Never! Never!'

  Tecumseh

  Summer, Country, Giving Up

  45 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 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

  141 Copy quote

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• This war did not spring up on our land, this war was brought upon us by the children of the Great Father who came to take our land without a price, and who, in our land, do a great many evil things... This war has come from robbery - from the stealing of our land.

  Spotted Tail

  Children, Father, Spring

  77 Copy quote

• Old age is not as honorable as death, but most people seek it.

  David Gemmell

  Native American, People, Age

  56 Copy quote

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

  Seneca the Younger

  Native American, American Indian, All Alone

  8 Copy quote

• I hope the Great Heavenly Father, who will look down upon us, will give all the tribes his blessing, that we may go forth in peace, and live in peace all our days, and that He will look down upon our children and finally lift us far above this earth.

  Red Cloud

  Children, Father, Native American

  76 Copy quote