“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.”

From my tribe I take nothing, I am the maker of my own fortune.

Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?

I am a Shawnee. My forefathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior. From them, I take my only existence.

When Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, you killed Him. The son of your own God. And only after He was dead did you worship Him and start killing those who would not.

Brothers, the white people are like poisonous serpents: when chilled they are feeble and harmless, but invigorate them with warmth and they sting their benefactors to death.

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.

Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers….

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.

Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own destiny! And of that I might make the destiny of my red people, of our nation, as great as I conceive to in my mind, when I think of Weshemoneto, who rules this universe!

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.