Sitting Bull Quotes

If I agree to dispose of any part of our land to the white people I would feel guilty of taking food away from our children's mouths, and I do not wish to be that mean.

The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country and live in our fashion.

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!

First kill me before you take possession of my Fatherland.

You come here to tell us lies, but we don't want to hear them. If we told you more, you would have paid no attention. That is all I have to say.

I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.

The meat of the buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border.

As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make a mighty fist.

The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.

This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.

I want to tell you that if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be the chief of this country, it is myself.

I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and when there are no buffalo or other game I will send my children to hunt and live on prairie mice, for where an Indian is shut up in one place his body becomes weak.

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.

Hear me, people: We have now to deal with another race- small and feeble when our fathers first met them, but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough they have a mind to till the soil and the love of possession is a disease with them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break but the poor may not. They take their tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule.

I hardly sustain myself beneath the weight of white men's blood that I have shed. The whites provoked the war; their injustices, their indignities to our families, the cruel, unheard of and wholly unprovoked massacre at Fort Lyon ... shook all the veins which bind and support me. I rose, tomahawk in hand, and I have done all the hurt to the whites that I could.

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.

For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who can not provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.

In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly.

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.

God made me an Indian, but not a reservation Indian.

What does it matter how long I pray, so long as my prayers are answered?

I surrender this rifle to you through my young son, whom I now desire to teach in this manner that he has become a friend of the Americans. I wish him to learn the habits of the whites and to be educated as their sons are educated. I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. This boy has given it to you, and he now wants to know how he is going to make a living.

God made me an Indian.

Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.

They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own and fence their neighbors away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse. That nation is like a spring freshet that overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side.

I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say ...

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?

The love of possession is a desease with them.

If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it, he will find it.

Every seed is awakened, and all animal life.

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?

I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief.

Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them.

What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?

What treaties that the whites have kept, that the red man broken?
Not one.
What treaties that the white man gave to us they kept?
Not one.

Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.