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 ELKAnd I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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 -
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
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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.
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 -
It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
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 -
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 -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
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 -
The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
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
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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELK