Best American Indian Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“There is no death, only a change of worlds.”

World Change Mediums Indian Native Sympathy Native American Grandparent Psychics Memorial American Indian Seattle Great American Native American Wisdom Great Spirit Native America Native American Indian Great Native American Native American Earth Indian Wisdom Pet Loss Native Wisdom My Sympathy Native American Indian Inspirational No Sympathy Native American Spiritual Dog Loss Sympathy For Loss Dog Grief Death Comfort Condolences And Sympathy Death Sympathy Proverbs Wisdom Death And Loss Spiritual Indian Native American Proverbs Death Condolences Meaningful Death Inspirational Sympathy Lost Loved Ones Funeral Sympathy Comforting Death Death Memorial Mourning Loss Comfort Loss Words Of Comfort Mourning A Loss Pet Memorial

Book:Answering Chief Seattle

Source: Answering Chief Seattle

“In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking.”

Moving Growth India Population Indian Accents American Indian Donuts Dumb Liberal Stupid Liberal Delaware Dunkin Donuts

Author:Joe Biden

“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.”

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

“Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.”

“The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.”

“In terms of the revolution, I believe that the revolution will be a revolution of dispossessed people in this country: that's the Mexican American, the Puerto Rican American, the American Indian, and black people.”

People Believe Country I Believe Black Term Revolution Indian Black People Mexican American Indian Mexican American

Author:H. Rap Brown

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

People Age Old Age Native Native American Honorable American Indian Native American Wisdom Native America Native American Indian Indian Wisdom Native Wisdom Native American Indian Inspirational Proverbs Wisdom Native American Proverbs Honorable Death

Author:David Gemmell

“If we must die, we die defending our rights.”

“Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”

“I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.”

“Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?”

“He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other different desires.”

“Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps.”

“Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.”

Tongue Native American Deaf American Indian Native American Indian Indian Wisdom Native American Indian Inspirational Native American Proverbs

Author:Terri Farley

“Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.”

World Needs Philosophy Literature Common Christianity Buddhism Tradition Including Senses Common Sense Indian Rely Taoism Hinduism American Indian Daily Living World Literature

Book:Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

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

Children Wisdom Motivational Earth Peace Environment Land Wise Words Words Of Wisdom Our Children Environmental Climate Change Indian Native Ancestor Native American Elders Inheritance Our Planet Our Environment Environmentalism Mother Earth Borrowing Descendants American Indian Earth Day Nature And Environment Native American Wisdom Great Spirit Native America Save Mother Earth Native American Indian Earth And Nature Great Native American Native American Earth Green Earth Indian Wisdom Native Wisdom Native Land Nature Conservation World Environment Beautiful Earth Green Living Save The Environment Native American Indian Inspirational Save Nature Native American Spiritual Native American Dream World Earth Day Environmental Pollution Inspirational Earth Inspirational Environmental Spiritual Indian Native American Proverbs Saving The Earth Go Green Happy Earth Day Ancient India Earth Friendly Protect Nature Cherokee Indian Native Place

Author:Chief Seattle

“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.”

“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.”

“The voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers.”

Source: American Indian Stories

“Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.”

“All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be content when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.”

“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.”

“Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.”

“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.”

“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!'”

“How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.”

Looks America Language Indian Native Native American Smooth Indigenous American Indian Native American Wisdom Native America Native American Indian Great Native American Native American Earth Indian Wisdom Native Wisdom Native American Indian Inspirational Native Language

Book:Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk: With an account of the late war

Source: Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk: With an account of the late war

“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.”

“If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. 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 think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.”

“We are going by you without fighting if you will let us, but we are going by you anyhow!”

Ifs Fighting Indian Native Native American American Indian Great American Native America Native American Indian Great Native American Native American Earth Indian Wisdom

Author:Chief Joseph

“Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

“A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”

“Where no one intrudes, many can live in harmony.”

Harmony Native Native American American Indian Native American Wisdom Great Spirit Native America Native American Indian Great Native American Indian Wisdom Native Wisdom Native American Indian Inspirational

Author:Chief Dan George

“The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this time the Indian race is waiting and praying.”

Spirit Waiting Race Land Praying Chiefs Indian Native Native American American Indian Great Spirit

Author: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.”

“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.”

“Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.”

“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.”

Source: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

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

Should Great Things Indian Native Native American All Alone American Indian Native American Wisdom Native America Native American Indian Great Native American Indian Wisdom Native Wisdom Native American Indian Inspirational Native American Proverbs

Author:Seneca the Younger

“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.”

Source: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

“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.”

“Humor is widely used by Indians to deal with life. Indian gatherings are marked by laughter and jokes, many directed at the horrors of history, at the continuing impact of colonization, and at the biting knowledge that living as an exile in one's own land necessitates. . . . Certainly the time frame we presently inhabit has much that is shabby and tricky to offer; and much that needs to be treated with laughter and ironic humor.”

Needs Used Deals Land Horror Offers Laughter Jokes Impact Treated Indian Ironic Continuing Gathering Exile Tricky American Indian Biting Colonization Shabby

Author:Paula Gunn Allen

“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.”

“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.”

Source: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

“This country was a lot better off when the Indians were running it.”

Country Running Indian Better Off American Indian

Book:For This Land: Writings on Religion in America

Source: For This Land: Writings on Religion in America

“I certainly don't object to [writers] trying to imagine the lives of other societies, but you have to do it with a certain amount of humility and respect. If it were not for the ethnographic material that had been collected by missionaries and anthropologists and so forth, much of past Native American society would no longer be accessible. What I object to is making kitsch of things that are very serious.”

Ifs Trying Past Certain Imagine Objects Humility Serious Materials Amount Indian Native Native American Lives Of Others American Indian American Society Kitsch Anthropologists

Author:Michael Dorris

“It's impossible to write about Native life without humor-that's how people maintain sanity.”

People Writing Impossible Indian Native Sanity American Indian

Author:Louise Erdrich

“There aren't a lot of alternative roles for Indian actors. I think we've fallen short of portraying Indians in the media. We don't need to make another Dances With Wolves, because it's not an Indian movie. When Indians portray themselves, then we have a different perspective. I've been asked about making period pieces but I've never read one that wasn't about guilt, and I'm not trying to make a guilt film.”

Thinking Needs Trying Different Film Actors Roles Pieces Media Perspective Periods Guilt Alternatives Indian Fallen American Indian Different Perspective Portraying

Author:Chris Eyre

“Indians and animals know better how to live than white man; nobody can be in good health if he does not have all the time fresh air, sunshine, and good water.”

Ifs Knows Men Doe Water White Animal Air Indian Sunshine White Man Good Health American Indian Fresh Air

Author:Flying Hawk

“It is my land, my home, my father's land, to which I now ask to be allowed to return. I want to spend my last days there, and be buried among those mountains. If this could be I might die in peace, feeling that my people, placed in their native homes, would increase in numbers, rather than diminish as at present, and that our name would not become extinct.”

Source: Geronimo's Story of His Life: As Told to S. M. Barrett

American Indian Quotes

Related topics

American Indian Quotes