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.
— Standing Bear
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.
Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.
There is one God, and He made both Indians and white men. We were all made out of the dust of the earth.
And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth.
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.