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 had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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.
BLACK ELK -
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK -
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK -
We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
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 -
So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.
BLACK ELK -
The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELK -
A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
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 -
All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
BLACK ELK -
And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
BLACK ELK -
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
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 -
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK -
I 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.
BLACK ELK