Black Elk Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

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Flames were rising from the waters and in the flames a blue man lived.

Black Elk
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.

Black Elk
This center which is here, but which we know is really everywhere, is Wakan-Tanka.

Black Elk
All around the circle, feeding on the green, green grass were fat and happy horses...

Black Elk
So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth.

Black Elk
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.

Black Elk
After the horse dance was over, it seemed that I was above the ground and did not touch it when I walked.

Black Elk
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.

Black Elk
A good nation I will make live.
This the nation above has said.
They have given me the power to make over.

Black Elk
My bay had lightning stripes all over him and his mane was cloud. And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.

Black Elk
He was the chief of all the horses; and when he snorted, it was a flash of lightning and his eyes were like the sunset star.

Black Elk
"Behold" he said, "all the wings of the air shall come to you, and they and the winds and the stars shall be like relatives."

Black Elk
I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead - and that one was myself.

Black Elk
In sorrow I am sending a feeble voice, O Six Powers of the World. Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!

Black Elk
The Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.

Black Elk
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
Then a Voice said: "Behold this day, for it is yours to make. Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see, for there they are taking you."

Black Elk
… behind me there were ghosts of people like a trailing fog as far as I could see - grandfathers of grandfathers and grandmothers of grandmothers without number.

Black Elk
If the vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet; for such things are of the spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.

Black Elk
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.

Black Elk
With visible breath I am walking.
A voice I am sending as I walk.
In a sacred manner I am walking.
With visible tracks I am walking.
In a sacred manner I walk.

Black Elk
And as I looked ahead, the people changed into elks and bison and all four-footed beings and even into fowls, all walking in a sacred manner on the good red road together.

Black Elk
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.

Black Elk
They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.

Black Elk
Of all the created things or beings in the universe, it is the two-legged men alone, who if they purify and humiliate themselves, may become one with — or may know — Wakan-Tanka.

Black Elk