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To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.

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
Bison
Perform
Vision
Use
Part
Power
People

More quotes by Black Elk

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When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around.
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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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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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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
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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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But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.
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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
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All things are our relatives what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.
Black Elk
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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.
Black Elk
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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
Black Elk
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Every place is the center of the world.
Black Elk
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There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
Black Elk
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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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Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where.
Black Elk
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May you always walk in Beauty.
Black Elk
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It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything then he knows that world which is real.
Black Elk
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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
Black Elk
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The power of the world always works in circles.
Black Elk
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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.
Black Elk
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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.
Black Elk