Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELKAlso, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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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Everything tries to be round.
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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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Know the Power that is Peace.
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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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It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
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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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The 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.
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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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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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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 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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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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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 saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
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I cured with the power that came through me.
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And 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.
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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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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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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.
BLACK ELK