Vine Deloria Jr. Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

Tribalism is the strongest force at work in the world today.

Vine Deloria Jr.
Literature on Indians provides no clues to understanding the present or remembering the past. Much contemporary literature is a thinly disguised romanticism that looks at Indians as the last and best spiritual hope for a society disheartened and disorganized.

Vine Deloria Jr.
The historical image of the Indians is pretty well set, we are the bad guys who burned the wagon trains and images are the white man's game.

Vine Deloria Jr.
To be an Indian in modern American society is in a very real sense to be unreal and ahistorical.

Vine Deloria Jr.
Do certain sets of circumstances lie ahead of us wherein we change the world radically by the choices we make?

Vine Deloria Jr.
The American public feels most comfortable with the mythical Indians of stereotype-land who were always THERE.

Vine Deloria Jr.
This country was a lot better off when the Indians were running it.

Vine Deloria Jr.
These Indians are fierce, they wear feathers and grunt. Most of us don't fit this idealized figure since we grunt only when overeating.

Vine Deloria Jr.
Space, as defined by in this book, is determinative of the way that we experience things. Time is subservient to it [space] because to have time, there must be a measurable distance to travel during which time can pass.

Vine Deloria Jr.
Royalty has always been an unconscious but all-consuming goal of the European immigrant.

Vine Deloria Jr.
Before any final solution to American history can occur, a reconciliation must be effected between the spiritual owner of the land - American Indians - and the political owner of the land - American Whites. Guilt and accusations cannot continue to revolve in a vacuum without some effort at reaching a solution.

Vine Deloria Jr.