Leonard Peltier Quotes

The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.

For me, it always comes back to the land, respecting the land, the wildlife, the plants, the rivers, mountains, and deserts, the absolute essential bedrock of our lives. This is the source of where my power lies, the source of where all our power lies. We are animal. We are Earth. We are water. We are a community of human beings living on this planet together. And we forget that. We become disconnected, we lose our center point of gravity, that stillness that allows us to listen to life on a deeper level and to meet each other in a fully authentic and present way.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

It is a written fact that our people had warned of all these consequences of wrongful environmental behavior since our very first contact with the non-Indians. There was a time when our elders used to say to us, "You can't function with one foot in the white man's canoe and one foot in the Indian's canoe." With these extreme environmental concerns taking place on the earth, mankind is all in the same boat. Or better be.

We receive our nourishment from the Mother Earth. So we should put our hands together in an attitude of prayer and say "please" and "thank you" when dealing with nature.

I think that indigenous women's wisdom is crucial. So much of the care of the Earth has come from the mothers. I think it's imperative we turn to their wisdom in how to take care of the planet.

I kind of feel like we're all humans; we all live on this planet. I kind of always wish there was more of a partnership - a really healthy relationship between people, working together to do things and make it good and change.

We emerged out of nature, and when we die, we return to nature. We need to know there are forces impinging on us that we will never understand or control. We need to have sacred places where we go with respect, not just looking for resources or opportunity.

It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.

We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways.

The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind. You should never trifle with Nature.

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

One of the things I've been taught by Native American elders is the importance of patience, of waiting to do things when the time is right.

In all of my books, I've emphasized that the fundamental difference between civilized and indigenous ways of being is that, for even the most open-minded of the civilized, listening to the natural world is a metaphor.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

The Japanese don't have a specific religion, but a spirituality. A cap, shoes, and a table have a spirituality. When you eat an apple, you don't say you eat it: you say, 'I am receiving it.' Kind of like you are thanking the food.

The land and the ocean are living, breathing entities that supported us, clothed us, fed us, and nurtured our culture from time immemorial.

To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.

Do not focus too much on the east and forget the west. And do not ignore the south, to speak for the north. What happens in the east has effects in the north, as the west has in the south. And do not focus on one species and ignore the other. Or love your father but ignore your mother, or love your sister but ignore your brother. Do not forget each other. We are all part of each other. We are all ONE.

Our strength comes from that magic, from the earth and the sky, from the fire and the water. Fly high, swim deep, give back to the earth what she gives you.

The earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

I feel sorry for people of good heart who have never had a chance to learn the realities of Native American everything - not just our history but the sweetness and the beauty and the reasons why were so close to Mother Earth.

We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature and, above all, with those Higher Powers which have made nature and have made us; for, assuredly, we have not come about by accident and certainly have not made ourselves

Virtually all native cultures that have survived without fouling their nests have acknowledged that nature knows best, and have had the humility to ask the bears and wolves and ravens and redwoods for guidance.

In my grandparents' time, it was believed that spirits existed everywhere - in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything. My generation does not believe this, but I like the idea that we should all treasure everything because spirits might exist there, and we should treasure everything because there is a kind of life to everything.