Indigenous Wisdom Quotes

“These are the lessons of being human, being vulnerable, and seeking wholeness with all that is. They are part of the pathway to power. The power lies in the wisdom and understanding of one’s role in the Great Mystery, and in honouring every little thing as a teacher. The lessons taught are eternal and forever forthcoming. If the learning is over, so is the magic and the life.”
― Jamie Sams, Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals

“Hunter-gatherers...were animists who believed in the unique sacred spirit of each animal, plant, object and process...a tree was not a tree, but a distinct individual. If it is just a tree, one among a whole forest of trees, it is no great matter to chop it down. Nothing unique is being removed from the world. But if we see it as a unique individual, sacred and irreplaceable, then we would chop it down only with great circumspection. We might, as many indigenous peoples do, meditate and pray before committing an act of such enormity.”
― Charles Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity: Civilization and the Human Sense of Self by Eisenstein, Charles

“Results speak louder than promises - community empowerment thrives on evidence.”
― Dean Foley

“Solutions that work are more valuable than brilliant theories.”
― Dean Foley

“We must prioritise effectiveness over elegance in community solutions.”
― Dean Foley

“What matters isn't how innovative an idea is, but how well it sustainably serves the community.”
― Dean Foley

“Effective action is always better than beautiful rhetoric.”
― Dean Foley

“Our communities deserve practical solutions, not just inspiring speeches.”
― Dean Foley

“Actions delivering genuine outcomes sustainably are always better than ambitious inaction.”
― Dean Foley

“Real change happens when we prioritise community wellbeing above economic returns, and honour wisdom over convenience.”
― Dean Foley

“Sustainable transformation is driven by placing community needs above profit-driven motives, and wisdom above easy solutions.”
― Dean Foley

“This planet is a tiny place in the universe. But you can have effects from this minuscule place happening in a different place in the universe.”
― Miki Mitayn, The Conscious Virus

“Educating the Educators (Sonnet 2281)

Greeks did not invent philosophy,
philosophy had existed across Latin America, Africa,
Arabia, India and China, thousands of years earlier,

not as some elitist discipline, but as everyday way of life,
later the europeans contributed their puny drop in the ocean,
but of course, the myth of europe as the origin of philosophy
goes deceptively well with the whitewashed history of earth.

Maps of the world are whitewashed,
history of the world is whitewashed,
ethics of the world are whitewashed,
knowledge of the world is whitewashed.

No wisdom is flawless 'n absolute, ancient or modern,
but the point is, enlightenment and civilization
did not originate in europe, they were born of
the lands colonially categorized as uncivilized.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Greeks did not invent philosophy, philosophy had existed across Latin America, Africa, Arabia, India and China, thousands of years earlier, not as some elitist discipline, but as everyday way of life, later the europeans contributed their puny drop in the ocean, but of course, the myth of europe as the origin of philosophy goes deceptively well with the whitewashed history of earth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Greeks did not invent philosophy, philosophy had existed across Latin America, Africa, Arabia, India and China, thousands of years earlier, not as some elitist discipline, but as everyday way of life, later the europeans contributed their puny drop in the ocean, but of course, the myth of europe as the origin of philosophy goes deceptively well with the whitewashed history of earth. Enlightenment and civilization did not originate in europe, they were born of the lands colonially categorized as uncivilized.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Enlightenment and civilization did not originate in europe, they were born of the lands colonially categorized as uncivilized.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Earth belongs to the Natives.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Not Christ, but church doctrine was a major downgrade in theology existing hundreds and thousands of years prior, at the same time, european reductionism was a major downgrade in a wholesome life-centric understanding of truth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“I know you love him very much, but you need to let him go. They're not the same after they pass over. Calling them back is only asking for trouble”
― Norris Black, Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

“The woman was given two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly above the serpents and sharp talons to make them her dinner.”
― River Davis, The Birds of Prey: And Apache's Crossbow of Immortality

“Your gang follows you," her mother had told her once, "but that doesn't mean you drag them into every battle--you save them for the war.”
― River Davis, The Birds of Prey: And Apache's Crossbow of Immortality

“The world continues, culture continues, reformation continues, even better without the parasitic powers of world politics - civilization thrives for they're never aloof, but ever entwined with Nature's dynamics.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“At the end of the century, fascism leaves no lasting mark on thousand year old civilizations, it's only the adolescent countries like the US that get wiped out of existence, destiny manifested on patchwork history and bootleg culture, collapse into obsolescence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“The ones who listen closely to the land are never truly lost. Even in collapse, they carry direction.”
― Lawrence Nault

“We are not here to conquer the wild. We are here to remember we are part of it.”
― Lawrence Nault

“Even in the age of satellites and smart cities, the wind still knows more than we do.”
― Lawrence Nault

“Nature is not a backdrop to your life. It is the very stage, the script, and the breath behind your lines.”
― Lawrence Nault

“When listeners know where the storyteller is coming from and how the story fits into the storyteller's life, it makes the absorption of the knowledge that much easier.”
― Shawn Wilson

“The Lakota...close, open, and often punctuate their prayers with the word Meta­kuyeayasi, a generally accepted translation of which is "all rela­tions"...human relations are, of course, included. But, in the same sense, so are the four legged animals, the animals which crawl and swim and fly, the plants, the mountains, lakes, plains, rivers, the sky and sun, stars, moon, the four directions...in short, everything. Everything in the universe is related within the tradition of Lakota spirituality; everything is relational, and can only be understood in that way. The basis for this understanding on the part of traditional Lakota culture is its spirituality. The relationality ofthe universe is a spiritual proposition, a force so complex and so powerful that it creates a sense of wonder and impotence in any sane human who truly considers it.”
― Frank Black Elk

“So, if capitalism is not really the root of the problem socialist societies share with late capitalist societies, there must be some­thing else, something shared in common. And that, it would seem to me, is industrialism. That, and the peculiar social forms gener­ated by the industrial process itself. Centralization is a dynamic shared, of necessity, by any industrial/industrializing society. Rationalization is another factor...assembly­ line workers are alienated [not] so much by the abstract notion of their "distancing" from their "product" or "profit" so much as they are alienated by the sheer physical misery of being trapped in a factory.”
― Frank Black Elk