Quotes on Native American

We are going by you without fighting if you will let us, but we are going by you anyhow!

All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be content when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place.

Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.

We’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people, we’re the human beings.

Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.

And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.

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.

The power of the world always works in circles.

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.

Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.

It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?

We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

Unless you're one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else. Somebody brought you.

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.

Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

To heal will require real effort, and a change of heart, from all of us. To heal means that we will begin to look upon one another with respect and tolerance instead of prejudice, distrust and hatred. We will have to teach our children-as well as ourselves-to love the diversity of humanity....We can do it. Yes, you and I and all of us together. Now is the time. Now is the only possible time. Let the Great Healing begin.

Above all, I wanted to be appreciated as a prima ballerina who happened to be a Native American, never as someone who was an American Indian ballerina.