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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

Black Elk

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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Vision
Might
People
Saved
Strength

More quotes by Black Elk

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When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
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The power of the world always works in circles.
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And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
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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 that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
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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.
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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
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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.
Black Elk
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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
Black Elk
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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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Know the Power that is Peace.
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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
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It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.
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You see, I had been riding with the storm clouds, and had come to earth as rain, and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me.
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May you always walk in Beauty.
Black Elk
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Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.
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One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.
Black Elk
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Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
Black Elk
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Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us and it was very still but there were whispers.
Black Elk