Vine Deloria, Jr.

“When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, 'Ours.'”

“The future of humankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things.”

“Humor, all Indians will agree, is the cement by which the coming festival of life is held together.”

“The first and most important thing that an Indian can do is to just be an Indian.”

“The problem is that we have treated the land as a resource and not as a source of life.”

“We have a stereotype of the Indian as a stoic, brave, and fearless person. It's a tragic stereotype.”

“Religion is for people who're afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who've already been there.”

“Before the white man can relate to others he must forego the pleasure of defining them.”

“The academic world is the last bastion of colonialism.”

“This nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine of discovery which allowed it to dehumanize original peoples.”

“The Indian world is a world of duties and obligations, not of rights and privileges.”

“Every society needs sacred places. A society that cannot remember its past and honor it is in peril of losing its soul.”

“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 halfway through.”

“Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.”