quotes about Native American
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Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
-- A. A. Milne -
I didn't know much about my Native American ancestry, but as I got older I became more interested in it.
-- Alan Robinson -
The forest is the first cathedral. I felt that from the time I was a child. I credit my mother with that. I used to think it came from her Native-American side. Whichever it was, she instinctively connected with nature, and taught me that.
-- Alice Walker -
There is an old and very wise Native American saying: Every time you point a finger in scorn—there are three remaining fingers pointing right back at you.
-- Alyson Noel -
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Unless you're one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else. Somebody brought you.
-- Barack Obama -
I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or who you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try.
-- Barack Obama -
I've always been interested in the history of the West, our country and particularly as it relates to the Native Americans - the original Americans.
-- Beau Bridges -
Second, this epic tale allows the audience to actually listen to the Native Americans and receive their wisdom. Spielberg conveys the respect for Native Americans that is normally lacking in Western films.
-- Beau Bridges -
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I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.
-- Bill Cosby -
The greatest moments of Native History lie ahead of us if a great spiritual renewal and wakening should take place. The Native American has been a sleeping giant. He is awakening. The original Americans could become the evangelists who will help win America for Christ! Remember these forgotten people!
-- Billy Graham -
Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.
-- Black Elk -
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours...
-- Black ElkSource : Black Elk (2000). “Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux”, Bison Books
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If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
-- Black Elk -
But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
-- Black Elk -
Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
-- Black Elk -
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
-- Black Elk -
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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
-- Black Elk -
How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.
-- Black HawkSource : 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
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A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt. He said, 'I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, violent one, the other wolf is the loving compassionate one.' The grandson asked him, 'Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?' The grandfather answered, 'The one I feed.'
-- Black Hawk -
Although wrongs have been done to me, I live in hopes. I have not got two hearts....Now we are together again to make peace. My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends have advised me to do. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses and everything else, it is hard for me to believe the white men any more.
-- Black Kettle -
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Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
-- Blaise Pascal -
Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't.
-- Bonnie Raitt -
We are now going to the Lamanites, to whom we intend to be messengers of instruction... We will show them that in consequence of their transgressions a curse has been inflicted upon them - in the darkness of their skins. We will have intermarriages with them, they marrying our young women, and we taking their young squaws to wife. By these means it is the will of the Lord that the curse of their color shall be removed and they restored to their pristine beauty...
-- Brigham Young -
I sang a song in Hindi; nobody even knew what that was. Singing about Native American issues, nobody did that. I had no reason to want to copy anybody else. All I had was my originality.
-- Buffy Sainte-MarieSource : Source: www.motherjones.com
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I feel sorry for people of good heart who have never had a chance to learn the realities of Native American everything - not just our history but the sweetness and the beauty and the reasons why were so close to Mother Earth.
-- Buffy Sainte-MarieSource : "The Fierce, Childlike Creativity of Buffy Sainte-Marie". Interview with Jacob Blickenstaff, www.motherjones.com. July 9, 2015.
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Instead of kids just hearing about beads and baskets and fringe, and about what 'was' and 'were,' we present Native American culture as a living contemporary culture.
-- Buffy Sainte-Marie -
We know our lands have now become more valuable. The white people think we do not know their value; but we know that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it are soon worn out and gone.
-- Canasatego -
It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. . . . Children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. . . . The Indians in their simplicity literally give away all that they have—to relatives, to guests of other tribes or clans, but above all to the poor and the aged, from whom they can hope for no return.
-- Charles Alexander Eastman -
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The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury... Furthermore, it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and success with his less fortunate brothers. Thus he kept his spirit free from the clog of pride, cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as he believed, the divine decree-a matter profoundly important to him.
-- Charles Alexander EastmanSource : Charles Alexander Eastman, Michael Oren Fitzgerald (2007). “The Essential Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa): Light on the Indian World”, p.4, World Wisdom, Inc
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As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I became civilized.
-- Charles Alexander Eastman -
The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity.
-- Charles Alexander Eastman -
I think people should look at learning about Native American history the same as visiting Washington, D.C., and seeing the monuments there. It's all part of the package.
-- Chaske Spencer -
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My son, you are now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. By the ceremony performed this day, every drop of white blood was washed from your veins; you were taken into the Shawnee Nation...
-- Chief Blackfish -
Where no one intrudes, many can live in harmony.
-- Chief Dan George -
One thing to remember is to talk to the animals. If you do, they will talk back to you. But if you don't talk to the animals, they won't talk back to you, then you won't understand, and when you don't understand you will fear, and when you fear you will destroy the animals, and if you destroy the animals, you will destroy yourself.
-- Chief Dan George -
We have taken so much from your culture, I wish you had taken something from ours...For there were some beautiful and good things within it. Perhaps now that the time has come, We are fearful that what you take will be lost.... I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success: His education, his skills, and society.
-- Chief Dan George -
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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 -
The time will soon be here when my grandchild will long for the cry of a loon, the flash of a salmon, the whisper of spruce needles, or the screech of an eagle. But he will not make friends with any of these creatures and when his heart aches with longing, he will curse me. Have I done all to keep the air fresh? Have I cared enough about the water? Have I left the eagle to soar in freedom? Have I done everything I could to earn my grandchild's fondness?
-- Chief Dan George -
It does not require many words to speak the truth.
-- Chief Joseph -
We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now... but it will grow again... like the trees.
-- Chief Joseph -
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The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this time the Indian race is waiting and praying.
-- Chief Joseph -
We are going by you without fighting if you will let us, but we are going by you anyhow!
-- Chief Joseph -
I am tired of talk that comes to nothing It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk. It does not require many words to speak the truth.
-- Chief Joseph -
We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home. This I believe, and all my people believe the same.
-- Chief Joseph -
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There is no death, only a change of worlds.
-- Chief SeattleSource : Albert Furtwangler, Chief Seattle (1997). “Answering Chief Seattle”, p.25, University of Washington Press
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All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
-- Chief SeattleSource : Seattle (Chief) (1976). “Chief Seattle's Testimony”
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When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear, when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them.
-- Chief Seattle -
Your religion was written on tablets of stone, ours on our hearts. 8. We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us.
-- Chief Seattle -
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The whites, too, shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you might suffocate in your own waste.
-- Chief SeattleSource : "Rede eines Indianers: "könnt ihr denn mit der Erde tun was ihr wollt?"".
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Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.
-- Chief Seattle -
The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man, for all things are the same breath - the animals, the trees, the man.
-- Chief Seattle -
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.
-- Chief Seattle -
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Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.
-- Chief Seattle -
We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?
-- Chief Seattle -
It is my wish and the wishes of my people to live peaceably and quietly with you.
-- Cornplanter -
Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever. It will not even perish by the flames of fire. As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to give life to men and animals. We cannot sell the lives of men and animals. It was put here by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us
-- Crowfoot -
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In its sacredness, families get together to (unintentionally?) celebrate one genocide (against Native Americans) by committing another (against turkeys).
-- Daniel Brook -
The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans. A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that's what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.
-- Danny Glover -
When I was a kid, I really loved Indians. Native Americans. Pardon. Me.
-- Dave Attell -
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 -
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The only thing Native Americans ever did better than the rest of us is spirituality. Of course, that's everything, isn't it?
-- Deacon Jones -
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 -
The word is important in Native American tradition. You speak the path on which you walk. Your words make the trail.
-- Diane GlancySource : Diane Glancy (1996). “Claiming Breath”, p.4, U of Nebraska Press
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I'm Native American, so it's in my blood to always want brothers and friends. I'm a good brotherhood guy.
-- Duane Chapman -
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I have a hard problem, being some part Native American - being a Christian: do you get burned, do you get cremated, do you get - let the sharks eat you? How do you die?
-- Duane ChapmanSource : "Exclusive Interview With Duane 'Dog' Chapman". "Hannity & Colmes" with Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, www.foxnews.com. November 6, 2007.
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You know that just before that first Thanksgiving dinner there was one wise, old Native American woman saying, Don't feed them. If you feed them, they'll never leave.
-- Dylan Brody -
Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel demeanor. He said: “They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don't know what they want. We think they are mad.
-- Eckhart Tolle -
In the name of Hypocrites, doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.
-- Edward Everett Hale -
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I'm proud of my Native American heritage,
-- Elizabeth Warren -
Being Native American has been part of my story I guess since the day I was born,
-- Elizabeth WarrenSource : "Who is Elizabeth Warren?". "Hannity" with Sean Hannity, www.foxnews.com. June 13, 2012.
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It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
-- Eric Hoffer -
People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they're all asleep at the switch. Consequently we are living in the Age of Human Error.
-- Florence KingSource : Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.108, Macmillan
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I do not always ask, in my prayers and discussions, for only those things I would like to see happen, because no man can claim to know what is best for mankind. Wakan Tanka and Grandfather alone know what is best, and this is why, even though I am worried, my attitude is not overcome with fear of the future. I submit always to Wakan Tanka's will. This is not easy, and most people find it impossible, but I have seen the power of Prayer and I have seen God's desires fulfilled. So I pray always that God will give me wisdom to accept his way of doing things.
-- Frank Fools Crow -
The song that I will sing is an old song, so old that none knows who made it. It has been handed down through generations and was taught to me when I was but a little lad. It is now my own song. It belongs to me. This is a holy song (medicine-song), and great is its power. The song tells how, as I sing, I go through the air to a holy place where Yusun (The Supreme Being) will give me power to do wonderful things. I am surrounded by little clouds, and as I go through the air I change, becoming spirit only.
-- Geronimo -
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.
-- GeronimoSource : "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
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I think laughter is crucial. Some of the original cultures, like the Dalit and the Native American, don't separate laughter and seriousness.
-- Gloria Steinem -
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Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
-- Gore Vidal -
I have had vegan Thanksgiving of tofurkey and soy gravy. And it's not to say that Thanksgiving will ever justify the genocide of the Native Americans. But vegan Thanksgiving - that's just spitting on the graves, isn't it?
-- Hari Kondabolu -
Environmental policies are driven by a kind of emotional spiritualism that threatens the very foundation of our society. There is increasing evidence of a government-sponsored religion in America. This religion, a cloudy mixture of new-age mysticism, Native American folklore, and primitive Earth worship, is being promoted and enforced by the Clinton administration in violation of our rights and freedoms.
-- Helen Chenoweth-Hage -
America is made up of people who came from someplace else. Even the Native Americans came over the Bering strait... America is what it is because people came from someplace else.
-- Isabel WilkersonSource : "The Great Migration & ‘The Warmth Of Other Suns’: Isabel Wilkerson On The African American Immigrant Story". www.huffingtonpost.com. November 17, 2010.
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You cannot really conceive of how insulting it is to Native Americans to be told they were discovered.
-- Ivan van SertimaSource : Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, John Henrik Clarke “Dr. Ivan Van Sertima- 8 DVD video lectures: 8 DVDs, Best viewed on wifi on phones or tablets. iPads or Android (use google Play Book app to view. Gmail account required)”, Clemson Brown
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I can't get upset about 'offensive to women' or 'offensive to blacks' or 'offensive to Native Americans' or 'offensive to Jews' ... Offend! I can't get worked up about it. Offend!
-- Jamaica Kincaid -
Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.
-- James Thurber -
Native Americans are not and must not be props in a sort of theme park of the past, where we go to have a good time and see exotic cultures. “What we have done to the peoples who were living in North America†is, according to anthropologist Sol Tax, “our Original Sin.
-- James W. LoewenSource : James W. Loewen (2013). “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong”, p.117, The New Press
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It's striking that Native Americans evolved no devastating epidemic diseases to give to Europeans, in return for the many devastating epidemic diseases that Indians received from the Old World.
-- Jared Diamond -
It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?
-- Jared Diamond -
Native Americans had only stone and wooden weapons and no animals that could be ridden. Those military advantages repeatedly enabled troops of a few dozen mounted Spaniards to defeat Indian armies numbering in the thousands.
-- Jared Diamond -
From the newest arrivals to our Native American brothers and sisters, we are one America.
-- Jared PolisSource : Jared Polis' at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 4, 2012.
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Thanksgiving began in 1621 when Native Americans sat down with a bunch of undocumented pilgrims. They had dinner and the pilgrims never left.
-- Jay Leno -
The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.
-- Jesse JacksonSource : 1984 Democratic National Convention Address, delivered 18 July 1984, San Francisco
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Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.
-- Jim Bishop -
I was inspired by Colin Farrell in the fact that he's Irish and has freckles but with black hair. I'm a bunch of different things, Irish, Polish, Native American, and French, but I wanted to tap into that Irish side and be freckle-y with black hair, so that's what I did.
-- Joanna Noelle Levesque -
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Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.
-- Joe Baca -
The realization of a sustainable economic development strategy for Maine's Native American communities has always been a priority and a critical element of my administration's overall economic development strategy.
-- John Baldacci -
By peace our condition has been improved in the pursuit of civilized life.
-- John Ross -
No one would stand for it [being the fool in the media] in a minute if you took any other group -Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, women - but somehow it's okay to do that with hillbillies.
-- John Shelton Reed -
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We’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people, we’re the human beings.
-- John Trudell -
Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. Its five hundred years later and they still cant see us. We are still invisible.
-- John Trudell -
There may be something in the fact that when I was a little kid I'd been told growing up that we had some degree of native American blood in us, I always found that a point of pride. So, when it came to cowboys and Indians I most certainly did not want to be John Wayne. I wanted to be one of the Indians.
-- Johnny Depp -
A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.
-- Joseph Campbell -