“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?”

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.

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

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

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.

If we must die, we die defending our rights.

What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one.

They want us to give up another chunk of our tribal land. This is not the first time or the last time.

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

Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

A cold wind blew on the prairie on the day the last buffalo fell. A death wind for my people.

God made me an Indian.

I have killed, robbed, and injured too many white men to believe in a good peace. They are medicine, and I would eventually die a lingering death. I had rather die on the field of battle.

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

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

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!

In a free society we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we’re civilized people we publicly criticize that and don’t belong to those groups or associate with those people.

It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain.

I’ve seen my name on marquees and bowed to standing ovations. I’ve also been called a fraud, a mental case, a heretic. People all over the country wait in line to hug me or curse me.

Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.

A bitter truth: some people are comfortable with your acceptance of their abuse.⁣

When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear.

When someone abuses me I can defend myself, but against praise I am defenceless.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but if a woman threatens to kill herself and your unborn child, you are in an emotionally abusive relationship.