Top 60 Black Elk Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.”

— Black Elk

2. “At the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.”

— Black Elk

3. “May you always walk in Beauty.”

— Black Elk

4. “Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.”

— Black Elk

5. “Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where.”

— Black Elk

6. “All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.”

— Black Elk

7. “Behold this day. It is yours to make.”

— Black Elk

8. “All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.”

— Black Elk

9. “There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.”

— Black Elk

10. “Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.”

— Black Elk

11. “And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”

— Black Elk

12. “The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours...”

— Black Elk

13. “It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.”

— Black Elk

14. “It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.”

— Black Elk

15. “One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.”

— Black Elk

16. “The Great Spirit is everywhere; he hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.”

— Black Elk

17. “Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.”

— Black Elk

18. “It is not enough to have a vision. In order to have its power, you must enact your vision on earth for all to see. Only then do you have the power.”

— Black Elk

19. “Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.”

— Black Elk

20. “The center of the universe is everywhere.”

— Black Elk

21. “Know the Power that is Peace.”

— Black Elk

22. “Hear me, four quarters of the world-a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.”

— Black Elk

23. “Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”

— Black Elk

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

— Black Elk

25. “When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.”

— Black Elk

26. “The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.”

— Black Elk

27. “And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.”

— Black Elk

28. “Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.”

— Black Elk

29. “Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.”

— Black Elk

30. “Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.”

— Black Elk

31. “Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions.”

— Black Elk

32. “Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.”

— Black Elk

33. “You see, I had been riding with the storm clouds, and had come to earth as rain, and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me.”

— Black Elk

34. “Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.”

— Black Elk

35. “And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.”

— Black Elk

36. “Whether it happened so or not I do not know; but if you think about it you can see that it is true.”

— Black Elk

37. “It’s in the darkness of men’s eyes that they get lost.”

— Black Elk

38. “Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.”

— Black Elk

39. “Give me strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is.”

— Black Elk

40. “Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles.”

— Black Elk

41. “My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow?”

— Black Elk

42. “And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.”

— Black Elk

43. “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.”

— Black Elk

44. “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.”

— Black Elk

45. “Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.”

— Black Elk

46. “If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.”

— Black Elk

47. “You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer.”

— Black Elk

48. “The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.”

— Black Elk

49. “The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.”

— Black Elk

50. “If you will read again what is written, you will see how it was.”

— Black Elk