Black Elk Quotes

• At the center of the universe dwells the great spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Universe, Center

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Riding, Storm

• You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Vision

  Tags in Remember

• 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.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Mother

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

  Black Elk

  Topics in Power

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sick

• There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Peace, Nations

• The soldiers did go away and their towns were torn down; and in the Moon of Falling Leaves (November), they made a treaty with Red Cloud that said our country would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Soldiers

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Boy

• Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Dreams

• So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Bright

• Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in World

• My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow?

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Story

• If you will read again what is written, you will see how it was.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Again

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

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think

• I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People

• I looked about me once again, and suddenly the dancing horses without number changed into animals of every kind and into all the fowls that are, and these fled back to the four quarters of the world from whence the horses came, and vanished.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Dancing

• I know now what this meant, that the bison were the gift of a good spirit and were our strength, but we should lose them, and from the same good spirit we must find another strength.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Know

• I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

  Black Elk

  Topics in Vision

Black Elk (33)

Birth:	December, 1863
Death:	19th August, 1950
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Leader, Writer

About

Black Elk was born in Little Powder River, Wyoming, USA. He was an American leader and writer. He was Heyoka and a second cousin of Crazy Horse. When he was nine years old, he was suddenly taken ill and left prone and unresponsive for several days. When he was seventeen, he told a medicine man, Black Road, about the vision in detail. Black Road and the other medicine men of the village were "astonished by the greatness of the vision."

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