What treaty have the Sioux made with the white man that we have broken? Not one. What treaty have the white man ever made with us that they have kept? Not one.

I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen are worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog.

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.

This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.

He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other different desires.

What does it matter how long I pray, so long as my prayers are answered?

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.

I want to tell you that if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be the chief of this country, it is myself.

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.

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.

They want us to give up another chunk of our tribal land. This is not the first time or the last time.

For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who can not provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.

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

If we must die, we die defending our rights.

What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.

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

Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.

The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country and live in our fashion.

Go back home where you came from. This country is mine, and I intend to stay here and to raise this country full of grown people.

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.