Native America Quotes

By the sandy water I breathe in the odor of the sea,
From there the wind comes and blows over the world,
By the sandy water I breathe in the odor of the sea,
From there the clouds come and rain falls over the world. ~ Jane Bierhorst

We are going by you without fighting if you will let us, but we are going by you anyhow! ~ Chief Joseph

For more than two decades I have tried, honestly and respectfully, to walk the difficult line between the world of Native America and the world of those of us whose people came, willingly or otherwise, to these American shores. I have done this because I believe that we, as Americans, are poorly served by our willful avoidance of the true facts of our national experience, and also because I believe that the lives and ways of the Native American peoples have much to teach us all. It ~ Kent Nerburn

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

We were like deer. They were like grizzly bear. ~ Chief Joseph

And why have you burnt our Gods, when others are brought from other Regions by the Spaniards? Are the Gods of other Provinces more sacred than ours? ~ Bartolome De Las Casas

It's therapy. [people] say true healing requires honest confrontation, and that can be seen on a macro scale with America and the things that have been swept under the rug, whether it be with the native Americans or slavery, or whatever holocaust that's happened on this soil. ~ Nate Parker

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. ~ Geronimo

As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I became civilized. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

South America had been an island continent, far bigger and far more diverse than Australia, for tens of millions of years before the Isthmus of Panama rose just a couple of million years ago. The resulting flood of North American mammals across the new land bridge corresponds in time with the decimation of the native South American fauna. In fact, most large mammals generally considered distinctly South American ... are all recent migrants from North America. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

The girl was cinnamon colored in the way of Native America after it had been raped by Europe. ~ Walter Mosley

I had to tell it because it was the only honorable way to fulfill the promise that I had made on the Red Lake Reservation almost twenty years earlier. This, then - The Wolf at Twilight - is the fruit of that promise. It is the part of Dan's life I had left untold. It takes us to places that for too long have been hidden in shadow and reveals truths about what has been taken from Native people and what the rest of us have lost in that taking. But it also reveals what we may all yet become if we heed Sitting Bull's poignant entreaty and put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for the children. I hope you find it worthy of your time. If it opens your eyes to another way of understanding, I am grateful. If it simply entertains you, I am pleased. But what matters most is that it touches you. For it is, above all, a story of Native America, and its goal is to lodge deep in your heart. ~ Kent Nerburn

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

And my point was one I think that you'd agree with, which is there's no room in America for a black racist, a Latino racist, or a white racist, or an Asian racist, or a Native American racist. Now, we're either color blind or we're not color blind. ~ Newt Gingrich

To say that certainly America was very lucky to get a large amount of land, and the native Indians were extremely unlucky to have white men coming over here, is one thing. But to say that the whole of the American prosperity was based on exploiting the indigenous population would be a great mistake. ~ Amartya Sen

Everybody in American seems in a rush to catch a train. ~ Oscar Wilde

Let me tell you, it is still morning in America. It just happens to be kind of a head pounding, hung over for four hours in America - and it's shaping up to be a nasty day, but its still morning in America. ~ Glenn Beck

The era of cheap oil and natural gas is coming to a crashing end, with global oil production projected to peak in 2010 and North American natural gas extraction rates already in decline. These events will have enormous implications for America's petroleum-dependent food system ~ Richard Heinberg

I'm okay if people don't know who I am, but if you remember my character that would be great. ~ America Ferrera

Corporate greed is killing America, and that's what we battling at Boeing. ~ Bill Johnson

December 26, 10:00 a.m.

Dear America,

Miracles of miracles, I've made it through the night. When I finally woke up, I convinced myself I was worried for nothing. I vowed that I would focus on work today and not fret so much about you.

I got through breakfast and most of a meeting before thoughts of you consumed me. I told everyone I was sick and am now hiding in my room, writing to you, hoping this will make me feel like you're home again.

I'm so selfish. Today you will bury your father, and all I can think of is bringring you here. Having written that out, seeing it in ink. I feel like an absolute ass. You are exactly where you need to be. I think I already said this, but I'm sure you're such a comfort to your family.

You know, I haven't told this to you and I ought to have, but you've gotten so much stronger since I met you. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that has anything to do with me, but I think this experience has changed you. I know it's changed me. From the very beginning you had your own brand of fearlessness, and that has been polished into something strong. Where I used to imagine you as a girl with a bag full of stones, ready to throw them at any foe who crossed her path, you have become the stone itself. You are steady and able. And I bet your family sees that in you. I should have told you that. I hope you come home soon so I can.

Maxon ~ Kiera Cass

If you look at the range of Hollywood movies playing in most cities in the developing world, you'd hate the America they portray, too. ~ Mark Steyn

I hear my father's voice. "Political differences divided what used to be America into The Nationalist States and The Patriot States: Then Nats declared war on the Patriots. Why?"
Olmo answers in an overly enthusiastic tone. "Because they couldn't agree on the division of derritoryes!"
"Territories," corrects Dad.
"That, too," says Olmo cheerfully. ~ Mya Robarts

Most importantly, we have our assets: an émigré who has returned to his native town. And we have our liabilities: he is afraid the GPU will take him away. ~ Ilya Ilf

America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub. ~ C. Wright Mills

The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. ~ Barack Obama

We have this idea in our minds that there's this separation of church and state in America, which I think is a good thing. And we extend that to our politics - not just church and state, but it's also there's a separation of religion and politics. But of course there isn't. ~ Stephen Colbert

I come from the very heart of America. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dieter, you're a brick!" I shouted. I couldn't help it. Dieter looked as pleased as punch. To him, being called a brick by an English native was probably more precious than a knighthood. ~ Alan Bradley

I like Mitch Daniels on the fiscal conservative issues. You disagree with him on this idea that social issues, you takeoff the table. I do that for two reasons. I think the fiscal issues in a sense are a symptom of a lot of the deeper cultural issues in America. I don't think they are as disconnected as he thinks. ~ Mark Steyn

I kind of have this sense of mission now when we talk about success: I'd really like Whole Foods to contribute to the healing of America, and the success of that may be measured in decades rather than in months, but I think we're on the way to doing it. ~ John Mackey

America rules the world - by force. ~ Harry Browne

He once told a reporter he wanted his obituary to be short - "just make it born in Russia, first lesson at 3, debut at 7, debut in America in 1917". ~ Jascha Heifetz

But all that's hugely unlikely
with the exception of mosquito bites and sunburn. And yet even experienced travelers are still afraid.
"What everyone forgets
even me
is the people who actually live here. In places like Central America, I mean. Southeast Asia. India. Africa. Millions, even billions, of people, who live out their whole lives in these places
the places so many people like us fear. Think about it: they ride chicken buses to work every day. Their clothes are always damp. Their whole lives, they never escape the dust and the heat. But they deal with all these discomforts. They have to.
"So why can't travelers? If we've got the means to get here, we owe it to the country we're visiting not to treat it like an amusement park, sanitized for our comfort. It's insulting to the people who live here. People just trying to have the best lives they can, with the hands they've been dealt. ~ Kirsten Hubbard

There are a lot of wonderful people in America who shouldn't be on the Supreme Court - and a lot who should be on the court who aren't such wonderful people. ~ David Frum

They linger yet, Avengers of their native land." - Gray ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The willingness to abuse other bodies is the willingness to abuse one's own. To damage the earth is to damage your children. To despise the ground is to despise its fruit; to despise the fruit is to despise its eaters. The wholeness of health is broken by despite (The Unsettling of America). ~ Wendell Berry

January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out. ~ Michael Caine

America is ripe for lies and lethargy. The pure mountain air is going and gone. It is a huge burden and a sadness for us all. ~ Ralph Steadman

Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost. ~ Charles Lindbergh

What do think about abortion?"
"I could feel the tension growing in the plane. I dropped my head, acknowledging that we had very different value systems for our lives. Then I thought of a way to respond to his question.
"You're Jewish, right?" I asked.
"Yes," he said defensively. "I told you I was!"
"Do you know how Hitler persuaded the German people to destroy more than six million of your Jewish ancestors?" The man looked at me expectantly, so I continued. "He convinced them that Jews were not human and then exterminated your people like rats."
I could see that I had his attention, so I went on. "Do you understand how Americans enslaved, tortured, and killed millions of Africans? We dehumanized them so our constitution didn't apply to them, and then we treated them worse than animals."
"How about the Native Americans?" I pressed. "Do you have any idea how we managed to hunt Indians like wild animals, drive them out of their own land, burn their villages, rape their women, and slaughter their children? Do you have any clue how everyday people turned into cruel murderers?"
My Jewish friend was silent, and his eyes were filling with tears as I made my point. "We made people believe that the Native Americans were wild savages, not real human beings, and then we brutalized them without any conviction of wrongdoing! Now do you understand how we have persuaded mothers to kill their own babies? We took the word fetus, which is the Latin word for ~ Kris Vallotton

I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me. ~ Martin Scorsese

America is looking for answers. She's looking for a new direction; the world is looking for a light. That light can come from America's great North Star; it can come from Alaska. ~ Sarah Palin

Could I see myself with a British boyfriend? Absolutely. The way they wear their pants is so cute. Guys don't do it in America. Their style is cute. I just feel like Brits are honest - period. And that's what I like. ~ Kelly Rowland

How come the Chinese can go where I can't go in America? Englishmen can come and set up a business in white America and do things I can't do.The Puerto Rican, Hawaiians, just about everybody can do more than black people and are more respected. ~ Muhammad Ali

They called me the sexiest economist in America, and that was years ago, when I had hair and body mass and my teeth were shiny. ~ Mark Zandi

I like America. I think it's pretty cool. ~ Mary Lynn Rajskub

Reuven, I did not want my Daniel to become like my brother, may he rest in peace. Better I should have had no son at all than to have a brilliant son who had no soul. I looked at my Daniel when he was four years old, and I said to myself, How will I teach this mind what it is to have a soul? How will I teach this mind to understand pain? How will I teach it to want to take on another person's suffering? How will I do this and not lose my son, my precious son whom I love as I love the Master of the Universe Himself? How will I do this and not cause my son, God forbid, to abandon the Master of the Universe and His Commandments? How could I teach my son the way I was taught by my father and not drive him away from Torah? Because this is America, Reuven. This is not Europe. It is an open world here. Here there are libraries and books and schools. Here there are great universities that do not concern themselves with how many Jewish students they have. I did not want to drive my son away from God, but I did not want him to grow up a mind without a soul. I knew already when he was a boy that I could not prevent his mind from going to the world for knowledge. I knew in my heart that it might prevent him from taking my place. But I had to prevent it from driving him away completely from the Master of the Universe. And I had to make certain his soul would the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life. ~ Chaim Potok

What naive garbage. People don't want freedom anymore
even those to whom freedom is a kind of religion are afraid of it, like trembling acolytes who make sacrifices to some pagan god. People want their governments to keep secrets from them. They want the hand of law to be brutal. They are so terrified by their own power that they will vote to have it taken out of their hands. Look at America. Look at the sharia states. Freedom is a dead philosophy, Alif. The world is returning to its natural state, to the rule of the weak by the strong. Young as you are, it's you who are out of touch, not me. ~ G. Willow Wilson

Things get very lonely in Washington sometimes. The real voice of the great people of America sometimes sounds faint and distant in that strange city. You hear politics until you wish that both parties were smothered in their own gas. ~ Woodrow Wilson

On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America. ~ George W. Bush

My family is Native American, and I was raised with Native American ceremonies. ~ Eric Balfour

When I am president, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally and protected equally. Every action I take, I will ask myself, 'Does this make life better for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Ferguson, who have as much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child America?' ~ Donald Trump

Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite poet. People like poets to possess the same qualities they do. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I'm going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America. ~ John McCain

I think it's hilarious when people call Jessica Alba or Eva Longoria curvy. Come on. They're not curvy. They're small. I'm curvy. ~ America Ferrera

If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile. ~ Samuel Eliot Morison

David Cromer, from Chicago, I think is the most gifted young director in America. ~ Terry Teachout