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

  131 Copy quote

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• 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

  195 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”

  93 Copy quote

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• 

  It does not require many words to speak the truth.

  Chief Joseph

  Truth, Reality, Broken Promises

  212 Copy quote

• 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

  574 Copy quote

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

  Chief Seattle

  Memories, Doe, Earth

  132 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

  112 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, Warrior

  142 Copy quote

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

  Tecumseh

  Respect, People, Groveling

  86 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

  48 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

  59 Copy quote

• Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.

  Tecumseh

  Lonely, Medicine, Giving

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

  78 Copy quote

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• 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

  173 Copy quote
• 

  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

  288 Copy quote

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

  Wilma Mankiller

  Inspirational, Moving On, Success

  92 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

  140 Copy quote

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• 

  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.

  121 Copy quote

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• 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

  333 Copy quote

• 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.

  142 Copy quote

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• Take only memories, leave only footprints.

  Chief Seattle

  Inspirational, Travel, Memories

  68 Copy quote

• 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

• 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.

  35 Copy quote

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• An Indian is an Indian regardless of the degree of Indian blood or which little government card they do or do not possess.

  Wilma Mankiller

  Race, Government, Blood

  140 Copy quote

• Where no one intrudes, many can live in harmony.

  Chief Dan George

  Harmony, American Indian, Indian Wisdom

  144 Copy quote

• If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it, he will find it.

  Sitting Bull

  Inspirational, Men, Looks

  59 Copy quote