It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
BLACK ELKEverything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
More Black Elk Quotes
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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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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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I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
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Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
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So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.
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The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey. The Indian is like that.
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It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.
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He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
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I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured,it was the power from the Outer World.
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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 was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
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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.
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK