I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELKThe 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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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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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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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
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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.
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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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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
BLACK ELK