The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.

After all the great religions have been preached and expounded, man is still confronted with the Great Mystery.

The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.

The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers, he belongs just as the buffalo belonged.

Certain small ways and observances sometimes have connection with large and more profound ideas.

Only to the white man was nature a 'wilderness'.

Silence is the Mother of Truth, for the silent man was ever to be trusted, while the man ever ready with speech was never taken seriously.

It is the mothers not the warriors who create a people and guide their destiny.

White men seem to have difficulty in realizing that people who live differently from themselves still might be traveling the upward and progressive road of life.

The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.