Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELKThe 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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.
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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.
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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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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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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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For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.
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You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer.
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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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But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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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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Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
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There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
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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
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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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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
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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.
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It’s in the darkness of men’s eyes that they get lost.
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It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death.
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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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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.
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Everything tries to be round.
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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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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.
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