So live your life that the fear of
death can never enter your heart.

Tecumseh

    Native American Wisdom, page one
Love is something you and I must have.  We must have it because our spirit
feeds upon it.  We must have it because without it we become weak and faint.
Without love our self-esteem weakens.  Without it our courage fails.  Without
love we can no longer look confidently at the world.  We turn inward and
begin to feed upon our own personalities, and little by little we destroy ourselves.
With it we are creative.  With it we march tirelessly.  With it, and
with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.

Chief Dan George
   

Flowers do not force their way with great strife.  Flowers open
to perfection slowly in the sun.  Don't be in a hurry about
spiritual matters.  Go step by step, and be very sure.

White Eagle
   

Standards of conduct were just as rigid as the laws of any other people, but force seldom was used to enforce good conduct.  Each person was his own judge.  Deceitfulness was a crime.  We lived according to our own standards and principles, not for what others might think of us.

Thomas Wildcat Alford

   

Marriage among my people was like traveling in a canoe.  The man sat in front and paddled the canoe.  The woman sat in the stern, but she steered.

unattributed

   

The thing wrong with the world is that people don't have instructions.
We were told almost three hundred years ago that people would be
coming to us and asking for our instructions.  We were told that back
in the 1700s that there'd be a day when white people would be coming
to us, asking for instructions and finding out the way we think.

Indians joke that when they see a white man coming, they see a question
mark walking down the road.  That's not one of the things I laugh about.
I feel for the ones who feel lost.  I tell them to use common sense and listen.
The Creator has the answers.  A lot of people are searching for what
they don't have.  They're searching for the wisdom of a whole way of life.
So they come to the Indians.  That's why I say it's in the prophecies
that they are coming to us, because they are wanting to learn our way of life,
what it is all about.  It's true, I get a lot of people, even college people,
who want to know how to be a "Human Being."  We don't laugh at the
white people, Most of the Indians can't laugh because even they haven't
been brought up in the Longhouse like I have.  They've got to learn too.
Even some of the chiefs have had to learn and I don't know
how much they have learned.

Leon Shenandoah

    

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light,
for your life and strength.  Give thanks for your food and the joy
of living.  If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Tecumseh
    
    
Earth teach me stillness
   as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
   as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
   as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
   as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
   as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
   as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
   as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
   as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
   as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
   as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
   as dry fields weep with rain.

Ute prayer
   
All life is Wakan.  So also is everything which exhibits power,
whether in action, as the winds and drifting clouds, or in
passive endurance, as the boulder by the wayside.  For even
the commonest sticks and stones have a spiritual essence which
must be revered as a manifestation of the all-pervading
mysterious power that fills the universe.

Francis Laflesche
   
    

Those who know how to play can easily leap over the adversities of life.
And one who knows how to sing and laugh never brews mischief.

Iglulik Proverb
    
   

Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of dirt.
Hold on to what you believe, even if it is a tree that stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life, even if it is easier to let go.
Hold on to my hand, even if I have gone away from you.

Pueblo Blessing
    
It is our desire that we and you should be as one heart,
one mind, and one body, thus becoming one people, entertaining
a mutual love and regard for each other, to be preserved
firm and entire, not only between you and us, but between
your children and our children, to all succeeding generations.

Kanickhungo
    

Now tell me this one little thing, if you have any sense.  Which of these
two is the wisest and happiest--he who labors without ceasing and only
obtains, and that with great trouble, enough to live on, or he who rests
in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasures of hunting and fishing?

Gaspesian Chief
   

   

A long time ago, the Creator came to Turtle Island and said to the Red People,
"You will be the keepers of the Mother Earth.  Among you I will give the wisdom
about Nature, about the interconnectedness of all things, about balance, and
about living in harmony.  You Red People will see the secrets of Nature.  You
will live in hardship and the blessing of this is you will stay close to the
Creator.  The day will come when you will need to share the secrets with other
people of the earth because they will stray from their Spiritual ways.
The time to start sharing is today.

Don Coyhis
    
Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.

Joy Harjo
    

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One major difference between our people and those of the dominant society
today is humility.  Among our people, no matter how far or how high a person
goes, they know they are small in the presence of God and the universe.

Lincoln Tritt
   

   

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