Deloria Jr Quotes & Sayings

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

Custer is said to have boasted that he could ride through the entire Sioux Nation with his Seventh Cavalry, and he was half right. He got half-way through. — Vine Deloria Jr.

But even labeling a site as astronomical is an improvement, since it partially sidesteps the old stereotype of Indians being primitive and ignorant savages. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Religion is for people who're afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who've already been there. — Vine Deloria Jr.

T's [King James Bible] subject is majesty, not tyranny, and it's political purpose was unifying and enfolding, to elide the kingliness of God with the godliness of kings, to make royal power and divine glory into one invisible garment which could be wrapped around the nation as a whole. — Adam Nicolson

An old chief of the Crow tribe from Montana was once asked to describe the difference between his tribe and the whites who lived nearby. Pausing slightly and drawing his conclusions, he remarked that the white man has ideas, the Indian has visions. The — Vine Deloria Jr.

Within the microcosm of a film you get drawn to people. There are certain projects you care enormously about, and 'The Edge Of Love' was one because I was portraying a great hero of mine, Dylan Thomas. — Matthew Rhys

The one conclusion I have reached is that whiskey is a great leveler. You might be a hotshot advertising executive or a lowly foundry worker, but if you cannot hold your drink, you are just a drunkard. — Vikas Swarup

It is this subtle dimension of understanding that marks the southwestern Indian peoples from other religions and separates tribal peoples from the world's religions. Somewhere in the planetary history religious expression changed from participation in the sound, color and rhythm of nature to the abstractions of man outside this context pleading for temporary respite and hoping in the next life to return to the Garden. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Who will find peace with the lands? The future of humankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things. Who will listen to the trees, the animals and birds, the voices of the places of the land? As the long forgotten peoples of the respective continents rise and begin to reclaim their ancient heritage, they will discover the meaning of the lands of their ancestors. That is when the invaders of the North American continent will finally discover that for this land, God is red. — Vine Deloria Jr.

For some unknown reason, this [antiabortion] branch of Christianity cherishes the unborn and hates the living person. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Never has America lost a war ... But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Until America begins to build a moral record in her dealings with the Indian people she should not try to fool the rest of the world about her intentions on other continents. America has always been a militantly imperialistic world power eagerly grasping for economic control over weaker nations. — Vine Deloria Jr.

The miracle-minded perception would be to make happiness itself our goal and to relinquish the thought that we know what that would look like. — Marianne Williamson

Culture, as Indian people understood it, was basically a lifestyle by which a people acted. It was self-expression, but not a conscious self-expression. Rather, it was an expression of the essence of a
people. — Vine Deloria Jr.

As time passed I became an avid reader of popular scientific books, wanting to know as much as I could about the world in which I lived. Gradually I began to see a pattern of nonsense in much scientific writing. Scientific explanations given regarding the origins or functioning of various phenomena simply didn't make sense. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. — Vine Deloria Jr.

These Indians are fierce, they wear feathers and grunt. Most of us dont fit this idealized figure since we grunt only when overeating — 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.

The future of mankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Small details are a vital part of allowing a reader to make an imaginative connection with long dead historical figures. — Sara Sheridan

My thick and full lips shall pout their African ancestry until all sorrows are kissed out of me. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white men came, an Indian said simply Ours. — Vine Deloria Jr.

I really do feel like I was born to write and tell stories. — Christopher Barzak

Not only did secular scientists rout the Christian fundamentalists, they placed themselves in the posture of knowing more, on the basis of their own very short-term investigations, than the collective remembrances of the rest of humankind. — Vine Deloria Jr.

If you want to be sovereign, act sovereign. — Vine Deloria Jr.

The bottom line about the information possessed by non-Western peoples is that the information becomes valid only when offered by a white scholar recognized by the academic establishment; in effect, the color of the skin guarantees scientific objectivity. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Some years back Richard Nixon warned the American people
that Russia was bad because she had not kept any treaty or
agreement signed with her. You can trust the Communists, the
saying went, to be Communists.
Indian people laugh themselves sick when they hear these
statements. America has yet to keep one Indian treaty or agreement
despite the fact that the United States government signed
over four hundred such treaties and agreements with Indian
tribes. It would take Russia another century to make and break
as many treaties as the United States has already violated. — Vine Deloria Jr.

You are absolutely amazing,' he breathed into her ear, but she didn't have the breath to respond to his words. She gasped heavily as their faces drew closer. He leaned down towards her, and she felt so drawn to him that she leaned up to meet him. She had no idea what was going on, but in spite of Uche's presence, she decided to follow her heart under the clear cold stars. Next thing, her unprepared body was rising gently, gradually standing on her tingling toes in order to meet his face. He was so tall that she barely reached his shoulders... — Nick Nwaogu

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

With the collision of the Shoemaker comet into Jupiter, the era of uniformitarian orthodoxy must come to an end. Minds that have been closed for nearly half a millennium can now be opened to see what really has happened to our planet in the past
and that past is not as distant as we might suppose. — Vine Deloria Jr.

If the tribal peoples actually represented Western origins at a much earlier time, it was exceedingly valuable that they should be studied intensely for clues about the nature and origin of human society. Consequently it was an injury to science and human knowledge to allow the military to simply exterminate them. — Vine Deloria Jr.

Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense. — 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.

The ultimate test of a transformational leader is the ability to raise up a new generation of leaders. — Jim Louwsma

We shall advance more by contemplating the Divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves, — Teresa Of Avila

Like almost everyone else in America, I grew up believing the myth of the objective scientist. Fortunately I was raised on the edges of two very distinct cultures, western European and American Indian ... — Vine Deloria Jr.

When I was two I was always like "I wanna be a famous singer when I grow up." When you listen to most kids they went in and did all these competitions. I was never like that, my mom never pushed me like that. I pretty much just sang when I wanted to. — Kiley Dean

You let go of my hand
to hold on to my heart
Distance grasps us tight
now that we are apart — Munia Khan

The question I always get is, Why didn't you throw Dr. Smith off the Jupiter? I get that all the time. — Mark Goddard