Standing Bear Quotations

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There's still live ordnance out there, ... They were out there exploding stuff last week.

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

Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

That the Indians possess the inherent right of expatriation as well as the more fortunate white race, and have the inalienable right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' so long as they obey the laws and do not trespass on forbidden ground.