A good nation I will make live.
- Black Elk Quote

After the horse dance was over, it seemed that I was above the ground and did not touch it when I walked.
- Black Elk Quote

And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
- Black Elk Quote

And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.
- Black Elk Quote

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
- Black Elk Quote

Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
- Black Elk Quote

Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.
- Black Elk Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth.
- Black Elk Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

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 Quote