Standing Bear Quotes & Sayings

My first years were spent living just as my forefathers had lived - roaming the green, rolling hills of what are now the states of South Dakota and Nebraska. — Standing Bear

If a white man had land, and some one should swindle him, that man would try to get it back, and you would not blame him. — Standing Bear

Friends and brothers, The Almighty created us Indians. We are as he made us. The Almighty has given to the whites a book to read, and they have plenty of things to work with. The Indian has no book. He cannot read. — Standing Bear

God never does anything wrong. He knows what is best for me. No man can understand God, or know why He deals with us as He does. — Standing Bear

You have driven me from the East to this place, and I have been here two thousand years or more ... My friends, if you took me away from this land it would be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land. I wish to be an old man here ... I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father. Though he would give me a million dollars or more I would not give to him this land ... When people want to slaughter cattle they drive them along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us ... My children have been exterminated; my brother has been killed. — Standing Bear

There is one God, and He made both Indians and white men. We were all made out of the dust of the earth. — Standing Bear

And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth. — Standing Bear