Black Elk Quotes

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 Elk

We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know the Great Spirit is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged and winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples. When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as the Spirit intends. ~ Black Elk

The first peace, which is the most important,
is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship,
their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize that at the center of the universe
dwells the Great Spirit,
and that this center is really everywhere,
it is within each of us. ~ Black Elk

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles. ~ Black Elk

While I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw;
For I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being....And I saw that it was holy ~ Black Elk

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding. ~ Black Elk

I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead - and that one was myself. ~ Black Elk

I knew that the real was yonder and that the darkened dream of it was here. ~ Black Elk

They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life. ~ Black Elk

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle. ~ Black Elk

It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way. ~ Black Elk

When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen; but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around. ~ Black Elk

If this were a courageous country,
it would ask Gloria to lead it
since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart
and the National Leaders we've always had
are not.
When I listen to her talk about women's rights
children's rights
men's rights
I think of the long line of Americans
who should have been president, but weren't.
Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.
John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.
Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting
the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President
Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie
Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy."
Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or
Sweet Honey in the Rock
dealing with Anything.
It is imagining to make us weep with frustration,
as we languish under real estate dealers, killers,
and bad actors. ~ Alice Walker

You see, I had been riding with the storm clouds, and had come to earth as rain, and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me. ~ 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

Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers. ~ Black Elk

My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? ~ Black Elk

The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls. ~ Black Elk

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

I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it. ~ Black Elk

A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over. ~ Black Elk

It's in the darkness of men's eyes that they get lost. ~ Black Elk

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. ~ Black Elk

If those bad words come, I let them come in one ear and go out the other. I never let them come out of my mouth. If a bad word comes in your ear and then comes out of your mouth, it will go someplace and hurt somebody. If I did that, that hurt would come back twice as hard on me. ~ Wallace Black Elk Lakota

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

You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer. ~ Black Elk

I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy. ~ Black Elk

It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real. ~ Black Elk

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. ~ Black Elk

And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me. ~ Black Elk

May you always walk in Beauty. ~ Black Elk

Crazy Horse was dead. He was brave and good and wise. He never wanted anything but to save his people, and he fought the Wasichus only when they came to kill us in our own country. He was only thirty years old. They could not kill him in battle. They had to lie to him and kill him that way.
I cried all night, and so did my father. ~ Black Elk

Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where. ~ Black Elk

A good nation I will make live. ~ Black Elk

Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions ~ Black Elk

To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see. ~ Black Elk

All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One. ~ Black Elk

I did not see anything [New York 1886] to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [white man] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. This could not be better than the old ways of my people. ~ Black Elk

And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me. ~ Black Elk

I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. ~ Black Elk

The center of the universe is everywhere. ~ Black Elk

In the beginning - not now, thank God - Patty was always sharing the important books of her life with him, like Black Elk Speaks, The Golden Bough, and Hero with a Thousand Faces. ~ Richard Price

Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me. ~ Black Elk

I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw. ~ Black Elk

But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it; for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good; and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all. ~ Black Elk

So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth. ~ Black Elk

The Holy Land is everywhere ~ Black Elk

I cured with the power that came through me. ~ Black Elk

The Great Spirit is everywhere; he hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice. ~ Black Elk

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

I know now what this meant, that the bison were the gift of a good spirit and were our strength, but we should lose them, and from the same good spirit we must find another strength. ~ Black Elk

Whether it happened so or not I do not know; but if you think about it you can see that it is true. ~ Black Elk

Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world ... It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt ~ Black Elk

If you will read again what is written, you will see how it was. ~ Black Elk

Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, And it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours is long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winter's before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot. ~ Black Elk

You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see. ~ Black Elk

After the horse dance was over, it seemed that I was above the ground and did not touch it when I walked. ~ Black Elk

Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. ~ Black Elk

One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us. ~ Black Elk

It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost. ~ Black Elk

It is not enough to have a vision. In order to have its power, you must enact your vision on earth for all to see. Only then do you have the power. ~ Black Elk

I pointed to a Black man standing nearby and said, "If I had said something up there on that stage today that was crazy, that Black man - even though he doesn't know me - would have pulled me aside and asked me what the fuck I was talking about. I told him that white people need to do the same thing. ~ W. Kamau Bell

And I'm happy to say that I'm able to find people wherever I go that are not black, not white - they're just human beings. That's where I am, where I've been and where I intend to stay. ~ Chico Hamilton

Gold looks good on my skin, and gold looks good on black people, I think. ~ Theophilus London

In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.

A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on her shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. At tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral. Something runs among them, an exchange of glances link lines that connect one figure with another and draws arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene: a blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an ephebe, a Fat Woman. And thus, when some people happen to find themselves together, taking shelter from the rain under an arcade, or crowding beneath an awning of the bazaar, or stopping to listen to the band in the square, meetings, seductions, copulations, orgies are consummated among them without a word exchanged, without a finger touching anything, almost without an eye raised.

A voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities. If men and women began to live their ephemeral d ~ Italo Calvino

I always believed I was an ugly duckling in a family of swans, you know? I was such a black sheep, and it was the same way in high school ... I was just kind of that awkward theater kid with a bunch of athletes ... it was very 'Glee.' ~ Lindsay Pearce

I have grown tired of the notion of an ally. I prefer the language of an "accomplice." An ally loves you from a distance. An accomplice loves you up close. We need allies to make the transition to accomplices. An ally is someone who has unpacked her personal privilege but hasn't yet made the link to institutional issues and is not willing to risk anything besides her mental comfort. An accomplice rolls up her sleeves and engages in the work that is beyond her. She'll march in the streets, yes. But an accomplice also faces her own participation in whiteness, acknowledges it, and then looks beyond that personal acknowledgment to identify how her awareness can be applied to changing the systems and mindsets that prop up the system. ~ DeRay Mckesson

The truth is a cave in the black mountains. There is one way there, and one way only, and that way is treacherous and hard. And if you choose the wrong path you will die alone, on the mountainside. ~ Neil Gaiman

Banishing zero also solves the infinity problems in general relativity. If you imagine a black hole as a string, no longer do objects fall through a rip in the fabric of space-time. Instead, a particle loop approaching a black-hole loop stretches out and touches the black hole. The two loops tremble, tear, and form one loop: a slightly more massive black hole. (Some theorists believe that the act of merging a particle to a black hole creates bizarre particles such as tachyons: particles with imaginary mass that travel backward in time and move faster than light. Such particles might be admissable in certain versions of string theory.) ~ Charles Seife

I got a tattoo saying, 'Freedom From Fear' because of 'Black Water Transit.' ~ Brittany Snow

Look at us, Lazarus, and share our joy. Is there anything stronger than love?"

And Lazarus looked. And for the rest of their life they kept on loving each other, but their passion grew gloomy and joyless, like those funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the decay of the graves and whose black summits in a still evening hour seek in vain to reach the sky. Thrown by the unknown forces of life into each other's embraces, they mingled tears with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient servants of the silent Nothingness. Ever united, ever severed, they blazed like sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the boundless Dark. ~ Leonid Andreyev

Evan Lucien, if it is my last act upon this Earth," he says, his eyes intense and shadowed in the lantern light, "I will make you come. ~ Lilly Black

If Barack Obama now, or some black person in the future, should become president, neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton would be out of a job. A black president can't end black misery; a black president can't be a civil rights leader or primarily a crusader for racial justice. ~ Michael Eric Dyson

If you think about it, I was at college, and then three months later, I was a massive pop star. It's stress-making, especially when you're a bit of an oddball as I was, the black sheep left to your own devices, and then suddenly everyone's interested in you. ~ Alison Moyet

Gazing into the mirror, I saw myself as I was-a black silhouette in the room, a woman whose darkness had completely leaked through. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

And the black box in her arms whimpered itself to sleep with longing to be a normal person who is chosen, not a special person who is discovered. To be the kind of duck who gets included by wild swans ~ Nell Zink

There is no doubt in my mind that he means it, no doubt at all.Gasping, I pull the knife from my little pocket and stab him in the side. Right between the ribs. If my knife had been longer, I would have punctured his lung.

His eyes go wide with shock. His grip on me loosens. I know what Madoc would say-to push the blade higher. Go for an artery. Go for his heart. But if I mange it, I will have murdered one of the favoured sons of Faerie. I cannot even guess my punishment.
You're no killer. ~ Holly Black

Brown people wouldn't speak to someone who was black. ~ Alex Haley

From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black-muzzled nose poking round at us. We took him out-soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his four, as yet not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. He wandered a little round our legs, neither wagging his tail nor licking at our hands; then he looked up, and my companion said: "He's an angel!" ~ John Galsworthy

I know you kids are angry, because the world isn't fair. Well, get over it, because it's never going to be fair. The white boys have all the money and all the power and that's the way it is. And they aren't going to give it up - to you or to me. And you can't blame them for it because if you had it, you wouldn't give it to them, either. But fighting each other isn't going to fix anything. All it's going to do is let everybody go on insisting that black and Hispanic kids are ignorant and violent. That's perfect. It's easy. If you're ignorant and violent, people who don't like you can kick you out of school or put you in jail. And it's you own fault. ~ LouAnne Johnson

I began to practise day and night, and the more I did, the more I was overwhelmed by the tremendous achievement of that great family of black American musicians I was beginning to know closely. ~ Gilad Atzmon

Hakan cursed his plan. What had he done bringing that sweet girl here? She was as delicate as she was beautiful. Her life on Sol had not exposed her to the kind of danger present in the Hub. He'd thought her name would protect her, a great family that could trace its line back to the first convoys from Earth. Her wealth, too, which could command anyone's respect. But the Hub was in the deepest black of space, where starlight was a distant glitter.
Nothing could protect her here. ~ Erin Kellison

Young has a personal relationship with electricity. In Europe, where the electrical current is sixty cycles, not fifty, he can pinpoint the fluctuation --- by degrees. It dumbfounded Cragg. "He'll say, 'Larry, there's a hundred volts coming out of the wall, isn't there?' I'll go measure it, and yeah, sure --- he can hear the difference."

Shakey's innovations are everywhere. Intent on controlling amp volume from his guitar instead of the amp, Young had a remote device designed called the Whizzer. Guitarists marvel at the stomp box that lies onstage at Young's feet: a byzantine gang of effects that can be utilized without any degradation to the original signal. Just constructing the box's angular red wooden housing to Young's extreme specifications had craftsmen pulling their hair out.

Cradled in a stand in front of the amps is the fuse for the dynamite, Young's trademark ax--Old Black, a '53 Gold Top Les Paul some knot-head daubed with black paint eons ago. Old Black's features include a Bigsby wang bar, which pulls strings and bends notes, and Firebird picking so sensitive you can talk through it. It's a demonic instrument. "Old black doesn't sound like any other guitar," said Cragg, shaking his head.

For Cragg, Old Black is a nightmare. Young won't permit the ancient frets to be changed, likes his strings old and used, and the Bigsby causes the guitar to go out of tune constantly. "At Sound check, everything will work great. Neil picks up th ~ Jimmy McDonough

[...]They offended Hood,' he stated flatly.
'And How they did that?' Silk enquired.
'They demanded a tithe upon the temple. I demonstrated Hood's tithe.'
'And who are you to judge?' Smokey demanded. The lad's Dark, almost blue-black eyes edged aside to Smokey. 'I am Hood's Sword. ~ Ian C. Esslemont

Sure relationships can be fun at first, but then you get to know each others quirks, and those quirks become quarks, and those quarks combine and become hadrons and scientists love to combine hadrons in giant hadron colliders and they create black holes! ~ Craig Benzine

This world is Silver, but it is also gray. There is no black-and-white. When ~ Victoria Aveyard

Celia realized she'd shocked Mr. Pinter when his thick black brows drew together in a frown. His lean form seemed even more rigid than usual, and his angular features-the arrow of a nose and bladed jaw-even more stark. IN his severe morning attire of black serge and white linen, he radiated male disapproval.
But why? He knew she was the only "hellion" left unmarried. Did he think she would let her brothers and sisters lose their inheritance out of some rebellious desire to thwart Gran's ultimatum?
Of course he did. He'd been so kind and considerate during her recitation of the dream that she'd almost forgotten he hated her. Why else were his eyes, gray as slate after a storm, now so cold and remote? The blasted fellow was always so condescending and sure of himself, so...so...
Male.
"Forgive me, my lady," he said in his oddly raspy voice, "but I was unaware you had any suitors."
Curse him for being right. "Well, I don't...exactly. There are men who might be interested but haven't gone so far as to offer marriage." Or even to show a partiality to her.
"And you're hoping I'll twist their arms so they will?"
She colored under his piercing gaze. "Don't be ridiculous."
This was the Mr. Pinter she knew, the one who'd called her "a reckless society miss" and a "troublemaker."
Not that she cared what he thought. He was like her brother's friends, who saw her as a tomboy because she could demonstrate a rifle's fine qualities. And like Cous ~ Sabrina Jeffries

In the case of a man and a woman [accused of commiting a crime together], both will often agree to the man taking the rap despite the man being more likely to receive a longer sentence and more likely to be raped in prison. If blacks were agreeing to do that for whites, the black community would be smart enough to call that 'learned subservience. ~ Warren Farrell

If you were willing to trade him away, even for an hour, then you don't deserve him. I'll keep them both to raise as my own and let that be our judgment on you for breaking and oath with us. (pg. 9) ~ Holly Black

We're going to fight racism not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. We say we're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism. ~ Fred Hampton

My story starts with my dad, a black boy born to a single mother in a small town in North Carolina. It starts with my parents meeting in Washington, D.C., in the '60s, at a time of incredible activism. ~ Cory Booker

I grew up thinking of her as our Elsie, not as someone else's mother. She was the black woman who had cleaned my parents' house once a week since 1975. She had worked for my grandparents for two decades before that. Until I was in high school, she was also the only black person I knew. ~ Kristen Green

At the end of all this, Russia held in her hands a vast belt of land running from the Baltic sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, comprising eleven nations with a population of 100 million people. ~ John T. Flynn