Top 40 Quotes & Sayings by Sioux Authors

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, whose blood is in your own veins.

They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.

Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent.

The Great Spirit will not make me suffer because I am ignorant. He will put me in a place where I shall be better off than in this world.

The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity.

The religion of the Indian is the last thing about him that the man of another race will ever understand.

Nearness to nature... keeps the spirit sensitive to impressions not commonly felt and in touch with the unseen powers.

The red man divided mind into two parts, - the spiritual mind and the physical mind.

Every act of his life is, in a very real sense, a religious act.

The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He had neither a national army nor an organized church.

That is, we believed, the supreme duty of the parent, who only was permitted to claim in some degree the priestly office and function, since it is his creative and protecting power which alone approaches the solemn function of Deity.

At the age of about eight years, if he is a boy, she turns him over to his father for more Spartan training.

The whites are the same everywhere. I see them every day.

More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material.

The hospitality of the wigwam is only limited by the institution of war.

It has been said that the position of woman is the test of civilization, and that of our women was secure. In them was vested our standard of morals and the purity of our blood.

The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.

But to have a friend, and to be true under any and all trials, is the mark of a man!

There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature.

The logical man must either deny all miracles or none, and our American Indian myths and hero stories are perhaps, in themselves, quite as credible as those of the Hebrews of old.

He sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, since to him all days are God's.

Our old age was in some respects the happiest period of life.

Our people, though capable of strong and durable feeling, were not demonstrative in their affection at any time, least of all in the presence of guests or strangers.

We do not want riches, we want peace and love.

There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among us, while on the other hand the relation between man and woman was regarded as in itself mysterious and holy.

I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.

Among us all men were created sons of God and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity.

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, 'Ours.'

Love between a man and a woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend and to be true under any and all trials is the mark of a man!

No one who is at all acquainted with the Indian in his home can deny that we are a polite people.

The clan is nothing more than a larger family, with its patriarchal chief as the natural head, and the union of several clans by intermarriage and voluntary connection constitutes the tribe.

In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.

Indian names were either characteristic nicknames given in a playful spirit, deed names, birth names, or such as have a religious and symbolic meaning.

When I was a young man, I was poor. In a war with other nations, I was in eighty-seven fights. There I received my name and was made Chief of my nation. But now I am old and am for peace.

The elements and majestic forces in nature, Lightning, Wind, Water, Fire, and Frost, were regarded with awe as spiritual powers, but always secondary and intermediate in character.

The white man has got the gold out of the land which belonged to the red man.

You whites make all the ammunition.

The family was not only the social unit, but also the unit of government.

Even if you live forty or fifty years in this world, and then die, you cannot take all your goods with you.

The Indian was a religious man from his mother's womb.