I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
BLACK ELKI looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead – and that one was myself.
More Black Elk Quotes
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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
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If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
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When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen; but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around.
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We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know the Great Spirit is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged and winged peoples; and even more important.
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But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.
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I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
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And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
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And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
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I cured with the power that came through me.
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK