We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

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.

All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance...

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.

Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

- Chief Seattle