Black Elk People Quotations

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.

I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead - and that one was myself.

And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.

I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.

To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.