John Fire Lame Deer Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
-
“We all come from the same root, but the leaves are all different.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“Love is something that you can leave behind you when you die. It's that powerful.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“We have a new joke on the reservation: 'What is cultural deprivation?' Answer: 'Being an upper-middle class white kid living in a split-level suburban home with a color TV.'”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“Laughter - that is something very sacred especially for us Indians.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“To our way of thinking the Indians' symbol is the circle, the hoop. Nature wants to be round. The bodies of human beings and animals have no corners. With us, the circle stands for togetherness of people who sit with one another around the campfire, relatives and friends united in peace while the sacred pipe passes from hand to hand. To us this is beautiful and fitting, symbol and reality at the same time, expressing the harmony of life and nature.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“Indians chase the vision, white men chase the dollar,”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan, the holy air, which renews all by its breath. Woniya wakan, spirit, life, breath, renewal, it means all that. We sit together, don’t touch, but something is there, we feel it between us as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature is to talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds, as to our relatives.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“If this earth should ever be destroyed, it will be by desire, by the lust of pleasure and self-gratification, by greed of the green frog skin, by people who are mindful of their own self, forgetting about the wants of others.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“If nature puts a burden on a man by making him different, it also gives him a power.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“You can pray for whatever you want, but it is always best to pray for others, not for yourself.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“We Sioux spend a lot of time thinking about everyday things which in our minds are mixed up with the spiritual. We see in the world around us many symbols that teach us the meaning of life. We have a saying that the white man sees so little, he must see with only one eye. We see a lot that you no longer notice. You could notice if you wanted to, but you are usually too busy. We Indians live in a world of symbols and images where the spiritual and commonplace are one…We try to understand them not with the head but with the heart”
-- John Fire Lame Deer -
“Men cannot live without mystery. He has a great need of it.”
-- John Fire Lame Deer
