Spiritual Indian Quotes

• It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

  Sitting Bull

  Native American, Animal, Yield

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

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• Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.

  Black Elk

  Children, Native American, Heart

  "The Sacred Pipe : Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux" recorded and edited by Joseph Epes Brown, 1953.

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  Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.

  Chief Joseph

  Life, Strength, Teacher

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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• What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.

  Crowfoot

  Life, Change, Death

  100 Copy quote

• Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology.... has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents the slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again? The earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there.

  William Commanda

  Native American, Technology, Two

  49 Copy quote

• We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children

  Chief Seattle

  Motivational, Wisdom, Peace

  301 Copy quote
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  The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.

  Chief Joseph

  Mother, Native American, Rights

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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• We believe profoundly in silence-the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit.

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Believe, Native American, Perfect

  16 Copy quote

• The aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one ecclesiastical ordinance, one array of prohibitions and injunctions which all minds must accept on peril of persecution by men and spiritual rejection or eternal punishment by God, that grotesque creation of human unreason which has been the parent of so much intolerance, cruelty and obscurantism and aggressive fanaticism, has never been able to take firm hold of the Indian mentality.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Spiritual, Men, Ideas

  "A Defense of Indian Culture". Essay by Sri Aurobindo, as quoted in Sisirkumar Mitra "The Vision of India", 1947.

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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.

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• 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, Native American, Thinking

  52 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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• Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth and the Great Silence alone.

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Inspirational, Sweet, Morning

  Charles Alexander Eastman (2003). “The Soul of the Indian”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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• 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.

  Black Elk

  Inspirational, 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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• Spirituality is the master key of the Indian mind. It is this dominant inclination of India which gives character to all the expressions of her culture. In fact, they have grown out of her inborn spiritual tendency of which her religion is a natural out flowering. The Indian mind has always realized that the Supreme is the Infinite and perceived that to the soul in Nature the Infinite must always present itself in an infinite variety of aspects.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Spiritual, Character, Keys

  "A Defense of Indian Culture". Essay by Sri Aurobindo, as quoted in Sisirkumar Mitra "The Vision of India", 1947.

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• Spirituality is indeed the master-key of the Indian mind; the sense of the infinitive is native to it.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Spiritual, Keys, Sri Lanka

  "The Renaissance in India" by Sri Aurobindo in "Arya", intyoga.online.fr. August 1918 - November 1918.

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  There is no death, only a change of worlds.

  Chief Seattle

  Change, Sympathy, Native American

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

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• If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow.

  Chief Joseph

  Native American, Men, White

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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• Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours.

  Tecumseh

  Native American, Views, Demand

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

  44 Copy quote

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• Let me be a free man - free to travel, free to stop, free to work.

  Chief Joseph

  Travel, Native American, Men

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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• Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles.

  Black Elk

  Native American, Circles, Doe

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

  89 Copy quote

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• 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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• Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Life, Lonely, Nature

  209 Copy quote

• When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

  Tecumseh

  Life, Death, Wisdom

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

  215 Copy quote

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• Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

  Tecumseh

  Inspirational, Appreciation, Fear

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

  17 Copy quote

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