Black Elk

A man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.

Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us and it was all our own country. It was ours already when the white men made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winters before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot.

I stood upon the highest mountain of the world and I knew more than I saw, I understood more than I knew, because I was seeing in a sacred manner. And what I saw were the hoops of all the nations interlocking in on great circle.

If you will read again what is written, you will see how it was.

And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.

This they tell, and whether it happened so or not I do not know, but if you think about it, you can see that it is true.

The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm.

there can be no power in a square.

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

Know the Power that is Peace.

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... And I saw that it was holy.

At the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream...

There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which... is within the souls of men.

Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions.

Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where.

Behold this day. It is yours to make.

All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.

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

The Holy Land is everywhere.

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.