Best 329 quotes in «native american quotes» category

How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

I always see America as really belonging to the Native Americans. Even though I'm American, I still feel like a visitor in my own country.

I am convinced that those societies (such as the Native American peoples) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate.

I always think of the Pacific Northwest as giant trees, and rain, and clouds and dampness, like the Native American art from that area.

I certainly don't object to [writers] trying to imagine the lives of other societies, but you have to do it with a certain amount of humility and respect. If it were not for the ethnographic material that had been collected by missionaries and anthropologists and so forth, much of past Native American society would no longer be accessible. What I object to is making kitsch of things that are very serious.

I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.

I believe, as a Puerto Rican, that the majority of Puerto Ricans want to be Puerto Ricans. Once we become annexed to the United States or by the United States, that we will lose our national identity. I can look at Hawaii as an example of people who lose, the Natives who lose their identity. I can look into the Native American reservations and see people who lose their national identity, their culture, their language, their land. And that's what's going to happen to Puerto Ricans here.

I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people ... I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] ... Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

I can't get upset about 'offensive to women' or 'offensive to blacks' or 'offensive to Native Americans' or 'offensive to Jews' ... Offend! I can't get worked up about it. Offend!

I'd like to invoke the Native American Navajo because their word for road is used as a verb. Their whole relationship to road has to do with how you travel it, who you are traveling it with, what the environment might be, where you're headed, in what direction, the weather and so on.

I do know that there have been many Native people - I don't like to call them "Native Americans," I guess, definitely not "Indians" - I've seen and read a lot about there's a big number of Natives that don't mind the Redskins name and they actually embrace it. Although there are a number of groups as well that are opposed to it.

I don't know that I would have the courage to come over to a new country where the religion is different, the language is different, where I don't have any money. The thought of starting over like that in the way that many refugee families have to start all over again - that's an incredible thing to think about. One of the things I tell about Refugee is that unless you're Native American or a descendant of slaves, your family immigrated to this country - whether they came over on the Mayflower or whether they came over on a raft last year.

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.

I feel sorry for people of good heart who have never had a chance to learn the realities of Native American everything - not just our history but the sweetness and the beauty and the reasons why were so close to Mother Earth.

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.

If we must die, we die defending our rights.

If you look at the statistics regarding Native Americans, you will see that most of the tribes since the 70s have improved their economic situation in some form. And this has been brought about by their aggressive assertion of their sovereign treaty rights.

If you want to know what it will be like when we are more deeply into the horizontal, simply go to one of the Indian casinos. The Native Americans, who stand for vertical thinking more than anyone else in our culture, have been setting up totally flat casinos for honkies.

I have a hard problem, being some part Native American - being a Christian: do you get burned, do you get cremated, do you get - let the sharks eat you? How do you die?

I have always been interested in mythology and history. The more I read, the more I realized that there have always been people at the edges of history that we know very little about. I wanted to use them in a story and bring them back into the public's consciousness. Similarly with mythology: everyone knows some of the Greek or Roman legends, and maybe some of the Egyptian or Norse stories too, but what about the other great mythologies: the Celtic, Chinese, Native American?

I have built my world through Native American mythology.

I am honored to have Ajamu Baraka as a running mate. I think he brings enormous credibility in the disenfranchised communities, not just African American but Latino, Asian American and Native American. He is a recognized advocate for racial justice, economic justice and human rights, and I think this conversation is only just begun. It is very important.

I have to say: We were looking at all of Native American actors, who mostly all work under one casting director. And there's so much talent to be cast. There really is. We saw some really good readings. There's more talent to be had there.

I have good genes. My father is Danish and my mother is Irish and Native American. They both have good skin.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Or, as it's known to Native Americans - Sarcastic You're Welcomesgiving.

I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say.

I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like... except for Show Tunes.

I'm even taller in person, because photographs shrink you down and steal your soul native american.

Immigrants have been coming here for a long time. The Americans that are afraid of others coming were immigrants once themselves, so they have a lot of nerve. We have a lot of nerve as a country. The only people that should have xenophobia are Native Americans. Everyone else should shut up.

I'm not against knowing the history of white people in the U.S. - that's not the point. The point is that there's so much greater history. We don't know about Native Americans. Very basically, we don't know that much about African American history, except that they were enslaved. You only get bits and pieces.

I'm not encouraged by the silence. I can think of no benign reason for it. I'm afraid we may expect something closer to Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas than a scene from Close Encounters, and we all know how that turned out for the Native Americans.

I'm sure you're gonna be taught, if you haven't already, that the people that were here, the Native Americans were beautiful, they were wonderful, they were at one with nature, and these evil white Europeans like Columbus came in and killed them and took them, imprisoned them, stole what was theirs, took it for ourselves.

I'm very much involved in art. I started buying art a few years ago and really like the work of T.C. Cannon, who is a native American artist. Then I was introduced to Soviet-era Russian impressionism and started collecting that, especially Gely Korzhev.

In a business that has exploited and ignored our people I have only found dead-ends. We need romantic comedies, gross-out and mockery comedies, horror and thrillers, teen movies and love-stories. All these and more will be a positive step towards the future of Native Americans in the world and film industry; an industry that that offers us not only the chance to play the parts of heroes, love interests and warriors, but also of villains, dorks and dangerous, brokenhearted products of circumstance.

I'm half Native American and half white so I think I can adjust culturally to anything.

In America there is really very little knowledge of the literature of the rest of the world. Of the literature of Latin America, yes, But that's not all that different in inspiration from that of America, or of Europe. One must go further. You don't even have to go too far in terms of geography - you can start with the Native Americans and listen to their poetry.

I have made a short excursion into the new world which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave off.

Instead of a man of peace and love, I have become a man of violence and revenge.

I once said, "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." When Bobby Jindal entered the Republican campaign, my comment should have been covered again, more prominently. I mean, Jindal is not Native American, he's a real Indian.

I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.

I saw The Revenant, and they were calling Native Americans "tree niggers," and that is not cool.

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?

In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

I studied trumpet for almost 15 years and was performing with a professional concert marching band in parades and rodeos. I was headed back east to study music, and if I hadn't been intrigued with the Native American flute, I suppose I'd now be jockeying for first chair of the brass section of some orchestra, or perhaps I'd be teaching music in a school system.

I think most Native American literature is unreadable by the vast majority of Native Americans. Generally speaking Indians don't read books. It's not a book culture. That's why I'm trying to make movies. Indians go to movies; Indians own video recorders.

I think people should look at learning about Native American history the same as visiting Washington, D.C., and seeing the monuments there. It's all part of the package.

I think that the whole stigma of the name may still burn deep with some of the Native people, but there are some that it doesn't bother. They actually think it brings enlightenment to the contributions that the Native Americans had in the establishment of our country, but I haven't come up with an idea. I'm not saying the name "Redskins" wasn't derogatory, but the actual changing the name to the Washington Redskins was an honorary move.

In Hollywood Westerns even in the Thirties and Forties, history was mythologized to accommodate some kind of moral code. And what really affects me deeply is when you see it taken to the extent where Native Americans become mythical people.

I think laughter is crucial. Some of the original cultures, like the Dalit and the Native American, don't separate laughter and seriousness.