These Indians are fierce, they wear feathers and grunt. Most of us dont fit this idealized figure since we grunt only when overeating — Vine Deloria Jr.
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
Land. If you understand nothing else about the history of Indians in North America, you need to understand that the question that really matters is the question of land. — Thomas King
It is essential to our interest and the security of our colonies that the several nations or tribes of Indians... who live under our protection, should not be molested or disturbed. — George III
I wish the Indians had newspapers of their own. If they had, you would have horrible pictures of the cold-blooded murders of inoffensive Indians. — Thaddeus Stevens
When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? — Sitting Bull
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
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made. — Albert Einstein
In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you'd be very unfortunate if you got probation - most of them were released immediately. — Leonard Peltier
I'm so sick and tired of hearing about slavery. You think slavery didn't exist in Africa? Even Indian tribes. — David Duke
I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me. — Chief Joseph
This country was a lot better off when the Indians were running it. — Vine Deloria Jr.
All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian. — Pat Paulsen
The intrusions of the white race and the non- compliance with treaty obligations have been followed by atrocities that could alone satisfy a savage and revengeful spirit. — Nelson A. Miles
American Indian Quotes
Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. — Crazy Horse
I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one. — Crazy Horse
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
Find the tribe that knows your song.
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
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
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children — Chief Seattle
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
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
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
Wisdom and peace come when you start living the life the creator intended for you. — Geronimo
Above all, I wanted to be appreciated as a prima ballerina who happened to be a Native American, never as someone who was an American Indian ballerina. — Maria Tallchief
Indian Nation Quotes
It is only on the basis of undiluted Nationalism and of perfect justice and impartiality that the Indian Army of Liberation can be built up. — Subhas Chandra Bose
Our nation is like a tree of which the original trunk is swarajya and the branches are swadeshi and boycott. — Bal Gangadhar Tilak
I don't understand these national awards, because half of those who sit in judgement over Indian films do not... possess the competence to evaluate a film correctly. — Satyajit Ray
A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself. — Henry Ward Beecher
Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man ... cannot be exempt from the common destiny. — Chief Seattle
It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi. — Martin Van Buren
Thanksgiving is for real Americans not Indians. We founded this Christian nation. Why if it wasn’t for the God-fearing pilgrims, the natives would still be running around in loin cloths shooting at things with their arrows. — Sarah Palin
The fey in this country keep to themselves, and are a separate nation, much like the American Indians, but with even more autonomy. — Laurell K. Hamilton
Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along. — Langston Hughes
If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India. — Max Muller
Native American Indian Quotes
One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk. — Crazy Horse
At the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us. — Black Elk
Where no one intrudes, many can live in harmony. — Chief Dan George
How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right. — Black Hawk
There is no death, only a change of worlds. — Chief Seattle
Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles. — Black Elk
The voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. — Zitkala-Sa
Don't let yesterday use up too much of today. — Will Rogers
Brothers, we must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other's battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirit. — Tecumseh
The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the Indian in us dies. — Mary Brave Bird
Indigenous People Quotes
We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism. — Rigoberta Menchu
I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people. — Steven Biko
To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future. — Arundhati Roy
Indigenous people believe that Man belongs to the World; civilized people believe that the World belongs to Man. — Daniel Quinn
We must respect each other's right to choose a collective destiny, and the opportunity to develop the legal and political rights for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples so that we may enjoy the right to maintain our culture, our heritage and our land, as a united Australia. — Jackie Huggins
Although we are in different boats you in your boat and we in our canoe we share the same river of life. — Oren Lyons
We have our eye on the same destination – a sustainable future where Indigenous people are recognized for their wisdom and honored for their culture – there is no problem taking a different path to reach that place. — Aboriginal proverbs
Through consciousness, our minds have the power to change our planet and ourselves. It is time we heed the wisdom of the ancient indigenous people and channel our consciousness and spirit to tend the garden and not destroy it. — Bruce H. Lipton
Baldness that appears to be normal is a disease in Europe, almost all of them are bald, and that is because of the things they eat; while among the indigenous peoples there are no bald people, because we eat other things. — Evo Morales
As it has for America's other indigenous peoples, I believe the United States must fulfill its responsibility to Native Hawaiians. — Daniel Akaka
Native American Quotes
If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew. — Pocahontas
Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State? — Robert E. Lee
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
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
Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity and worth of cultures and peoples. — Rigoberta Menchu
There is a direct connection between violence against the Earth and violence against women. — Lee Maracle
Earth does not belong to us; we belong to earth. Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints. — Chief Seattle
The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. — Chief Seattle
Cows run away from the storm while the buffalo charges toward it - and gets through it quicker. Whenever I’m confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment, I become the buffalo. — Wilma Mankiller
We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that. — Chief Joseph
We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not; and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them. — Chief Joseph
This generation of little children is the 7th Generation. Not just Indian children but white, black, yellow and red. Our grandfathers said the 7th generation would provide new spiritual leaders, medicine people, doctors, teachers and our great chiefs. There is a spiritual rebirth going on. — Clyde Bellecourt
The major adventure is to claim your authentic, true being, which is not culturally given to you. The culture will not explain to you how to be a real human being. It will tell you how to be banker, politician, Indian chief, masseuses, actress, whatever, but it will not give you true being. — Terence McKenna
I got a great grandma. Her name is Pearl, and she was at one time married to an Indian chief, who, in a wonderful crossing of cultures, she integrated some of his, and some of hers, and um,
it was a combination of peyote and preserves, and it was this hallucinogenic jam. — Eddie Vedder
Sixty percent of the vegetables you see in the supermarkets came from the American Indians. They also gave us aspirin and quinine. And their model of government parallels our Senate. But their women elected the chiefs, and impeached them. — Harry Dean Stanton
I doubt very much if a man whose main literary interests were in works by Mr. Zane Grey, admirable as they may be, is particularly equipped to be the chief executive of this country, particularly where Indian Affairs are concerned. — Dean Acheson
You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too. — Proverbs
You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too.
Perfect love cannot be without equality.
A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing.
We are all alike, on the inside. — Mark Twain
Chief Seattle, of the Indians that inhabited the Seattle area, wrote a wonderful paper that has to do with putting oneself in tune with the universe. He said, — Joseph Campbell
Indian Reservations Quotes
It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps. — Sherman Alexie
To me, women's lib was mainly a white, upper-middle class affair of little use to a reservation Indian woman. — Mary Brave Bird
The Indians, however, could not migrate from one part of the United States to another; neither could they obtain employment as readily as white people, either upon or beyond the Indian reservations. — Nelson A. Miles
The Indians had to be either killed, or herded into reservations, which were essentially concentration camps, and forgotten. Their history had to be absolutely obliterated so that we could believe that we were living on virgin soil. — Richard Rodriguez
We Indians are Latin America's moral reserve. We act according to a universal law that consists of three basic principles: do not steal, do not lie and do not be idle. — Evo Morales
Looking at the purpose of our government toward the Indians, we find that after subjugating them it has been our policy to collect the different tribes on reservations and support them at the expense of our people. — Nelson A. Miles
It made me feel good to know that we had such a great country like Canada where even a poor Indian from the Red Pheasant reserve could make it to the top. — Allen Sapp
For some students, school is the only place where they get a hot meal and a warm hug. Teachers are sometimes the only ones who tell our children they can go from an Indian reservation to the Ivy League, from the home of a struggling single mom to the White House. — Denise Juneau
You'd never have a motorcycle policeman out on the Indian reservation. — Alex Cox
Native American Culture Quotes
Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library. — Luther Standing Bear
We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as wild. Earth was beautiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. — Luther Standing Bear
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. — Tecumseh
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man's heart away from nature becomes hard. — Luther Standing Bear
In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures. — Winona LaDuke
We need only look to our Navajo Code Talkers during World War II to see the value that Native languages bring not only to their culture, but to the security of all Americans. — Rick Renzi
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
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. Loewen
Native people such as the Cherokees are just as human and complex and real as Americans are, and our nation needs to respect American Indian cultures and traditions. — Joseph Bruchac
Cherokee Indian Quotes
Smallpox in a blanket, which the U.S. Army gave to the Cherokee Indians on their long march to the West, was nothing compared to what I'd like to see done to these people — Michael Savage
I'm proud of being part Cherokee, and I think it's time all us Indians felt the same way. — Loretta Lynn
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
Help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence. — Robert Muller
[last words] What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. — Crowfoot
The power of the world always works in circles. — Black Elk
Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. — Black Elk
My mother's mother is Jewish and African, so I guess that would be considered Creole. My mother's father was Cherokee Indian and something else. My dad's mother's Puerto Rican and black, and his father was from Barbados. — Meagan Good
Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them. — Thomas Jefferson
My father was one-eighth Cherokee indian and my mother was quarter-blood Cherokee. I never got far enough in arithmetic to figure out how much injun that made me, but there's nothing of which I am more proud than my Cherokee blood. — Will Rogers
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. — Tecumseh
"I used to think the world was broken down by tribes," I said. "By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not." — Sherman Alexie
Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World's Indian population. — Jared Diamond
Children must early learn the the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. — Charles Alexander Eastman
No contact with savage Indian tribes has ever daunted me more than the morning I spent with an old lady swathed in woolies who compared herself to a rotten herring encased in a block of ice. — Claude Levi-Strauss
From several of the Indian tribes inhabiting the country bordering on Lake Erie purchases have been made of lands on conditions very favorable to the United States, and, as it is presumed, not less so to the tribes themselves. — James Monroe
The matriarchal society is thus the decadent and broken. The strongly matriarchal character of Negro life is due to the moral failure of Negro men, their failure to be responsible, to support the family, or to provide authority. The same is true of American Indian tribes which are also matriarchal today. — R.J. Rushdoony
That those tribes [the Sac and Fox Indians] cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizensis certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. — Andrew Jackson
The United States have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes, and have in every other instance insisted upon a like performance of their obligations. — Martin Van Buren
Land of opportunity, land for the huddled masses where would the opportunity have been without the genocide of those Old Guard, bristling Indian tribes? — Edward Hoagland
It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people. — Andrew Jackson
Too often, Indian tribes are at the mercy of the shifting political winds of State government. — Jim Costa
The several tribes of Indians inhabiting the regions of the Upper Missouri. . . are undoubtedly the finest looking, best equipped, and most beautifully costumed of any on the Continent. — George Catlin
If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi... in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all. — Thomas Jefferson
Librarians are not just gatekeepers to knowledge, they are what the American Indians used to call their special sages who preserved the oral legends of a tribe: dream keepers. — James H. Billington
On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago. — Norman Mailer
An Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the U.S. permits it to be sovereign. — Russell Smith
The province was surrounded by powerful tribes of Indians who watched the white settlers with an eager hostility, and seized every occasion to molest them by secret inroad, and often by open assault. — John P. Kennedy
If you're an Indian, you could be very anxious about some of the Supreme Court's decisions, some of the decisions of policy makers, so maybe a little bit of irony there. But I think our "Savage Anxieties," when I titled the book, I really wanted to focus people on the challenge that tribes in this country, as well as indigenous peoples around the world, are confronting Western civilization with. — Robert A. Williams, Jr.
One was a horrible case called Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe which denied tribes the right to criminally prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on their reservations. That decision has had horrible consequences for law enforcement on Indian reservations. But in that opinion Justice William Rehnquist cites language from the 1830s to explain why whites didn't trust tribes to exercise criminal jurisdiction. They were savages. — Robert A. Williams, Jr.
President Obama met with leaders of the American Indian tribes and they honored the president by giving him his own Indian name: Running Deficits. — Jay Leno
If everything that is happening in the world is traceable to our inability to understand what is happening in the world. If there is such a thing as original sin, it's the human capacity to get everything wrong, right from the beginning and all the way up to now, and that's what the old storytellers have been telling us, including the Creek Indians who told this story along with every other tribe on earth. — Gerald Hausman
I am committed to furthering the self-determination of Indian communities but without terminating the special relationship between the Federal Government and the Indian people. I am strongly opposed to termination. Self-determination means that you can decide the nature of your tribe's relationship with the Federal Government within the framework of the Self-Determination Act, which I signed in January of 1975. — Gerald R. Ford
For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. — Thomas Jefferson
I'm Indian all the way and always will be. I'm not going to stop fighting until I die, and I hope I'm a good example of a human being and of my tribe. — Anna Mae Aquash
So what? A lobbyist cheated Indian tribes out of $25 million then laundered their money through phony Christian charities trying to stop other Indian tribes from getting casinos [on screen: 'Thou Shalt Not Compete'] and bribe congressmen in the process. Know what I call that? I call that business as usual in Washington. [on screen: 'Screwing Indians'] — Stephen Colbert
We know that this nation entered into solemn treaties [with Indian tribes] which have been continuously violated for more than 250 years. It's a disgrace. It's an outrage. We must do everything in our power to keep those treaties. Otherwise, the word of the United States government is no good. — John McCain
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
The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time? Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world? — Jeanette Winterson
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