Sitting Bull quotes

Sitting Bull was a renowned Hunkpapa Lakota leader and spiritual figure, celebrated for his resistance against U.S. government policies. His leadership during the Battle of the Little Bighorn became legendary in Native American history. He remains a symbol of Indigenous resilience and the struggle for cultural survival. Here are 54 of his quotes:

Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.

Sitting Bull

I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and when there are no buffalo or other game I will send my children to hunt and live on prairie, for where an Indian is shut up in one place his body becomes weak.

Sitting Bull

I am nothing, neither a chief nor a soldier.

Sitting Bull

I have killed, robbed, and injured too many white men to believe in a good peace. They are medicine, and I would eventually die a lingering death. I had rather die on the field of battle.

Sitting Bull

What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one.

Sitting Bull

The love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbor away. ... If America had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough.

Sitting Bull

They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own and fence their neighbors away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse. That nation is like a spring freshet that overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side.

Sitting Bull

Look at me, see if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.

Sitting Bull

Behold, my brothers, the spring has come; the earth has received the embraces of the sun and we shall soon see the results of that love! Every seed has awakened and so has all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land.

Sitting Bull

I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief.... I want to tell you that if the Great Spirit has chosen anyone to be the chief of this country, it is myself.

Sitting Bull

This is a good day to die. Follow me!

Sitting Bull

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!

Sitting Bull

If we must die, we die defending our rights.

Sitting Bull

You think I am a fool, but you are a greater fool than I am.

Sitting Bull

I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.

Sitting Bull

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?

Sitting Bull

They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse.

Sitting Bull

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?

Sitting Bull

Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them.

Sitting Bull

I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.

Sitting Bull

God made me an Indian.

Sitting Bull

There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them.

Sitting Bull