Chief Seattle/Quotes

 

All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

 

Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.

 

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.  

Chief Seattle/Quotes

 

 

Statement on surrendering tribal lands to Isaac Stevens, governor of Washington Territory (1855)

(NB: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Seattle for historical details of this statement, which states "Chief Seattle gave a speech in January 1854 that was reported by Dr. Henry A. Smith in the Seattle Sunday Star in 1887. It is most usually called Seattle's Reply since it was a response to a speech by Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens. While there is no question that Chief Seattle gave a speech on this occasion, the accuracy of Smith's account is doubtful.").

• My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory.

• At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.

Link: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chief_Seattle