Chief Seattle Quotes
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we can not eat money.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Earth does not belong to us; we belong to earth. Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.
We are all children of the Great Spirit, we all belong to Mother Earth. Our planet is in great trouble and if we keep carrying old grudges and do not work together, we will all die.
The whites, too, shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear, when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them.
Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth.
What is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pool at night?
To us, the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground.
Your religion was written on tablets of stone, ours on our hearts. 8. We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us.
When the green hills are covered with talking wires and the wolves no longer sing, what good will the money you paid for our land be then
Like a man who has been dying for many days, a man in your city is numb to the stench.
The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers?
The earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit
Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land.
We are part of the earth and it is part of us ... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? ... The end of living and the beginning of survival.
Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons.
Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.
I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son.
How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness?
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun.
Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
What is man without the beasts? For if all the beast were gone, man would die of a great loneliness of the spirit.
The white man will never be alone. Let him be just, and deal kindly with my people. For the dead are not powerless.