“The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.”

The meat of the buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border.

Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit.

Every seed is awakened, and all animal life.

In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly.

Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.

You think I am a fool, but you are a greater fool than I am.

I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief.

I am nothing, neither a chief nor a soldier.

What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?

Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?

Our religion seems foolish to you, but so does yours to me. The Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and the Catholics all have a different God. Why cannot we have one of our own?

He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other different desires.

The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country and live in our fashion.

You come here to tell us lies, but we don’t want to hear them. If we told you more, you would have paid no attention. That is all I have to say.

What does it matter how long I pray, so long as my prayers are answered?

This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.

Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.

I’m not a magician. I’am an alchemyst, a man of science, though perhaps not the science you would be familiar with.

The mental flexibility of the wise man permits him to keep an open mind and enables him to readjust himself whenever it becomes necessary for a change.

Not even the greatest man in the world will never be able to match the determination of every single woman.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.