I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say.
Sitting BullRead
Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the contrast between simple living and materialism.
Sitting Bull reflects on the nature of humanity, suggesting that while people have the innate desire to cultivate and nurture their surroundings, they are often afflicted by an unhealthy attachment to material possessions, which can be seen as a societal disease. This observation invites contemplation on the balance between the appreciation of the earth and an overemphasis on ownership and wealth.
In practice
This quote could be shared in a discussion on minimalism and living simply.
I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say.
I want to tell you that if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be the chief of this country, it is myself.
Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?
When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?
Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.
I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.
Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective ways of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone is your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not the other?
I respect everything in change and the solemn beauty of life and death... and therefore, while man is amidst the immense beauty of objective bodies, he must possess the capacity of self-perfection and must observe and represent his world with full confidence.
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
Every month, it is woman's fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.
If the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.
Truth has been relegated to subjectivity; beauty has been subjugated to the beholder; and as millions are idiotized night after night, a global commune has been constructed with the arts enjoying a totalitarian rule.
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