The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELKSo I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.
More Black Elk Quotes
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The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELK -
Hear me, four quarters of the world-a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.
BLACK ELK -
The Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.
BLACK ELK -
Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.
BLACK ELK -
Everything tries to be round.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
I cured with the power that came through me.
BLACK ELK -
Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
BLACK ELK -
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK -
Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us.
BLACK ELK -
Each family is a circle, and those family circles connect together and make a community, and the community makes its circle where it lives on the Earth.
BLACK ELK -
But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it; for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good; and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.
BLACK ELK -
All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
BLACK ELK