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

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!

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

There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them.

What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.

Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

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.

Go back home where you came from. This country is mine, and I intend to stay here and to raise this country full of grown people.

I was very sorry when I found out that your intentions were good and not what I supposed they were.

What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.

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

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

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 use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse.

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.

First kill me before you take possession of my Fatherland.

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

I raised you so high that every other man on earth is now doomed to live in your shadow.

Most men are not wicked, They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.

The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.

A man is sorry to be honest for nothing.

Sometimes I [longed to be a chimp] I just wanted to know. what it felt like in the evening to be making a nest and what it felt like to be a female when a big male comes thundering in.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, It might have been.