Native American Philosophy Quotes

You must know where you came from yesterday, know where you are today, to know where you're going tomorrow." -Cree saying ~ Trace A. DeMeyer

To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the pestilence following upon crowded and unsanitary dwellings was the loss of spiritual power inseparable from too close contact with one's fellow-men. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

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

Native Americans were driven off their land. Lincoln even took part in the Black Hawk campaign against the Native Americans in Illinois. While they were being exterminated and driven off their land, Whites were collecting assets. ~ Ishmael Reed

There's an old, private cemetery here in Palm Springs, where I live, just down the street from the airport, that belongs to one of the local Native American tribes, and it occurred to me one day that if you really wanted to get away with murder, you'd kill someone, put them in a coffin and bury them in a private cemetery or, better, an abandoned one. And then suddenly this whole idea of a long con appeared before me and I had this idea of using a Jewish cemetery. ~ Tod Goldberg

We use a Native American tradition of the talking stick. You sit and pass it around and whoever has the stick has to talk. Some people just hold it. Others really share. ~ Lisa Bonet

He had always thought that a Native American should have shot Robert Frost for the outrageous lie of the line "The land was ours before we were the land's." What a scandal that would be, America's best-loved geezer falling in a battle over poetry. ~ Jim Harrison

Words summarize the American philosophy of life: Live and let live; Let's make a deal. 8 words summarize American foreign policy: We're better than you; Do it our way. ~ Gary North

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

If a child is inclined to be grasping, or to cling to any of his or her little possessions, legends are related about the contempt and disgrace falling upon the ungenerous and mean person ... ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said Allah God has come to fight the battle of justice for the Black man and woman of America and it is He who is plaguing America with the disasters of unusual rain, hail, snow, and soon earthquakes. So if the Black man and woman and the Native Americans, or Indians, are not in the equation of those running for the high office of the Presidency of the United States, if we are not in the equation for justice, then none of these candidates can save America from the Wrath of Allah. ~ Louis Farrakhan

The first to wave the white flag was America when they elected a new president.
The second was the American people for forgetting where their ancestors came from.
The third was congress for letting racism rule the roost. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Africa is the ancestral home of black people;
our arms are open, in love we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of white people;
our hearts are open, in joy we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of Asian people;
our minds are open, in peace we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of Middle Eastern people;
our homes are open, in delight we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of Aboriginal people;
our banks are open, in understanding we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of European people;
our schools are open, in humility we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of American people;
our markets are open, in friendship we welcome you.
Africa is the ancestral home of all people;
our countries are open, in appreciation we welcome you. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

From nowhere we came; into nowhere we go. What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. ~ Crowfoot Blackfoot Warrior Chief 1890

He came back to her lips and tasted them briefly before settling his forehead against hers. "I don't care what Grayson or his legal document says," he muttered between catches of wind. "God's given you to me, and as soon as He allows, I'll claim you as my own."
He spoke with such confidence that if she allowed herself, she could almost believe him. But with belief came hope, and with hope, the inevitability of pain.
The knocking at the door resumed, more urgently this time.
Along her throat, splotches of cool marked where he'd sampled her. Milly lamented that it was already warming. In heartbeats, all she would have was memories. And anguish. Could God truly fill the hollow Phillip would leave? Last night, His promise had filled her to the depths of her soul. It was enough. It would have to be.
With his eyes locked on hers, Phillip's hand trailed her cheek and throat. It brushed over her shoulder and down her arm. Then, in one blink, he wiped every emotion from his face, stunning her with the callous glaze of his eyes.
He gripped her by the elbow, whisked her through the kitchen, and opened the door to her wretched future. ~ April W. Gardner

The land of opportunity", "The American dream", "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness": these are the sounds of the great sucking mechanism of the American parasite. The reliance of seduction and persuasion over coercion that sold democracy to the American people eventually sold it to the rest of the world. Although there are a minority of examples of the direct parasitism of involuntary immigration, especially slaves from Africa and the "legal" incorporation of Native Americans, voluntary immigration through the lure of freedom and and equality is only a more indirect form of parasitic predation. What is voluntary can be no less predatory than coercion, just as capitalism can be no less predatory than military imperialism. From the point of view of competition among nations, the point is not whether a citizen or their ancestor originally arrived voluntarily or involuntarily, but whether a nation or ideology is successful in harnessing its human resources towards its national interest or way of life. American parasitism works because it offers the secular Judaism of liberalism rather than the secular Christianity of communism. Communism could never compete with the immigrant American hope that they themselves might one day be a filthy rich capitalist. ~ Mitchell Heisman

Everyone who's born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. We are all Native Americans. ~ Russell Means

No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers ... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided. We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave. ~ Tecumseh

Growing up, my mother and grandparents often talked about our family's Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation - what kid would? ~ Elizabeth Warren

When Mr. Lippmann says that the founders of our free institutions were adherents of the philosophy of natural law, and that 'the free political institutions of the Western world were conceived and established' by men who held certain abstract beliefs, he speaks with the shortened perspective of an American way of thinking in which a manner of conducting affairs is inconceivable without an architect and without a premeditated 'dedication to a proposition.' But the fact is that nobody ever 'founded these institutions.' They are the product of innumerable human choices, over long stretches of time, but not of any human design. ~ Michael Oakeshott

In the writings of many contemporary psychics and mystics (e.g., Gopi Krishna, Shri Rajneesh, Frannie Steiger, John White, Hal Lindsay, and several dozen others whose names I have mercifully forgotten) there is a repeated prediction that the Earth is about to be afflicted with unprecedented calamities, including every possible type of natural catastrophe from Earthquakes to pole shifts. Most of humanity will be destroyed, these seers inform us cheerfully. This cataclysm is referred to, by many of them, as "the Great Purification" or "the Great Cleansing," and is supposed to be a punishment for our sins.

I find the morality and theology of this Doomsday Brigade highly questionable. A large part of the Native American population was exterminated in the 19th century; I cannot regard that as a "Great Cleansing" or believe that the Indians were being punished for their sins. Nor can I think of Hitler's death camps, or Hiroshima or Nagasaki, as "Great Purifications." And I can't make myself believe that the millions killed by plagues, cancers, natural catastrophes, etc., throughout history were all singled out by some Cosmic Intelligence for punishment, while the survivors were preserved due to their virtues. To accept the idea of "God" implicit in such views is logically to hold that everybody hit by a car deserved it, and we should not try to get him to a hospital and save his life, since "God" wants him dead.

I don't know who are the worst sinners on this p ~ Robert Anton Wilson

How far men go for the material of their houses! The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages, send into far, primitive forests, beyond the bounds of their civilization, where the moose and bear and savage dwell, for their pine boards for ordinary use. And, on the other hand, the savage soon receives from cities iron arrow-points, hatchets, and guns, to point his savageness with. ~ Henry David Thoreau

We gathered up the kids and sat up on the hill. We had no time to get our chickens and no time to get our horses out of the corral. The water came in and smacked against the corral and broke the horses' legs. The drowned, and the chickens drowned. We sat on the hill and we cried. These are the stories we tell about the river," said [Ladona] Brave Bull Allard. The granddaughter of Chief Brave Bull, she told her story at a Missouri River symposium in Bismark, North Dakota, in the fall of 2003.

Before The Flood, her Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lived in a Garden of Eden, where nature provided all their needs. "In the summer, we would plant huge gardens because the land was fertile," she recalled. We had all our potatoes and squash. We canned all the berries that grew along the river. Now we don't have the plants and the medicine they used to make. ~ Bill Lambrecht

On one hand the Christian missionaries sought to convert the heathen, by fire and sword if need be, to the gospel of peace, brotherhood, and heavenly beatitude; on the other, the more venturesome spirits wished to throw off the constraining traditions and customs, and begin life afresh, levelling distinctions of class, eliminating superfluities and luxuries, privileges and distinctions, and hierarchical rank. In short, to go back to the Stone Ages, before the institutions of Bronze Age civilization had crystallized. Though the Western hemisphere was indeed inhabited, and many parts of it were artfully cultivated, so much of it was so sparsely occupied that the European thought of it as a virgin continent against whose wildness he pitted his manly strength. In one mood the European invaders preached the Christian gospel to the native idolaters, subverted them with strong liquors, forced them to cover their nakedness with clothes, and worked them to an early death in mines; in another, the pioneer himself took on the ways of the North American Indian, adopted his leather costume, and reverted to the ancient paleolithic economy: hunting, fishing, gathering shellfish and berries, revelling in the wilderness and its solitude, defying orthodox law and order, and yet, under pressure, improvising brutal substitutes. The beauty of that free life still haunted Audubon in his old age. ~ Lewis Mumford

No. But then the American Government
whatever branch
has never really grasped the concept of tribal identity. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Pumpkin compote in a masa shell," she says. "It's a new recipe I'm going to try this week."
"So, a pumpkin tamale? You know you can just call it a pumpkin tamale. Nobody's going to be impressed because you used some fancy words."
Her mouth turns down. "Thank you for the editorial. Just try it."
I take a bite. It's good. Better than I expected. The balance of cinnamon and nutmeg is perfect, a hint of allspice. And some ingredient I can't place. Almost... coppery? But it works. ~ Rebecca Roanhorse

There is a direct connection between violence against the Earth and violence against women. ~ Lee Maracle

I would never want to write a character who was not thoroughly herself or himself. She's a very specific creature in my mind, and she has her thoughts, which range from skin to American history, philosophy, and the arts. ~ Lynne Tillman

There have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, 'Well, I don't want those folks,' even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans. ~ Barack Obama

You may have heard the old story, usually attributed to a Native American elder, meant to illuminate the power of attention. A grandfather (occasionally it's a grandmother) imparting a life lesson to his grandson tells him, "I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is vengeful, fearful, envious, resentful, deceitful. The other wolf is loving, compassionate, generous, truthful, and serene." The grandson asks which wolf will win the fight. The grandfather answers, "The one I feed. ~ Sharon Salzberg

I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. ~ Chief Joseph

The old legends of America belong quite as much to the blue-eyed little patriot as to the black-haired aborigine. And when they are grown tall like the wise grown-ups may they not lack interest in a further study of Indian folklore, a study which so strongly suggests our near kinship with the rest of humanity and points a steady finger toward the great brotherhood of mankind, and by which one is so forcibly impressed with the possible earnestness of life as seen through the teepee door! If it be true that much lies "in the eye of the beholder," then in the American aborigine as in any other race, sincerity of belief, though it were based upon mere optical illusion, demands a little respect.

After all he seems at heart much like other peoples. ~ Zitkala-Sa

Hopis have lived in America longer than anyone. We wanted to explore the concept of Earthly visitation through the eyes of people who have also witnessed the rapid evolution of modern culture. For us, their beliefs ring true on so many levels. Hopi prophecy speaks to the destiny of man...in a universe where we are not alone. ~ T.J. Wolf

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

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. ~ Mark Twain

In our hunger for guidance, we were ordinary. The American Freshman Survey, which has followed students since 1966, proves the point. One prompt in the questionnaire asks entering freshmen about "objectives considered to be essential or very important." In 1967, 86 percent of respondents checked "developing a meaningful philosophy of life," more than double the number who said "being very well off financially." Naturally, students looked to professors for moral and worldly understanding. Since then, though, finding meaning and making money have traded places. The first has plummeted to 45 percent; the second has soared to 82 percent. ~ Anonymous

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

A woman in combat? Yes. Since when? Since Native American warrior Buffalo Calf Road Woman knocked that prick General George Custer off of his horse. Since Pantea Arteshbod propelled herself to become one of the greatest Persian commanders during the reign of Cyrus the Great. Since Hua Mulan disguised herself as a male to engage in combat and became one of China's most respected heroines. ~ M.B. Dallocchio

I have made a short excursion into the new world which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave off. ~ Henry David Thoreau