Vine Deloria Jr. Quotes
Vine Deloria Jr. was a Standing Rock Sioux philosopher, theologian, and the most widely read indigenous American intellectual of the late twentieth century. The quotes below are attributed to Vine Deloria Jr., organized by topic.
Vine Deloria Jr. on God
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Attributed to Vine Deloria Jr.:
“God is red; the religions of place will outlast the religions of empire.”
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“Who will find peace with the lands? The future of humankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things. Who will listen to the trees, the animals and birds, the voices of the places of the land? As the long forgotten peoples of the respective continents rise and begin to reclaim their ancient heritage, they will discover the meaning of the lands of their ancestors. That is when the invaders of the North American continent will finally discover that for this land, God is red.”
pg. ix -
“The idea that religion was conceived as originally designed for a particular people relating to a specific god falls well within the experiences of the rest of humankind and may conceivably be considered a basic factor in the existence of religion.”
p. 204
Vine Deloria Jr. on Knowledge
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“Custer Died for Your Sins (1988), p. 2”
All but one person I met who claimed Indian blood claimed it on their grandmother's side. I once did a projection backward and discovered that evidently most tribes were entirely female for the first three hundred years of white occupation. No one, it seemed, wanted to claim a male Indian as a forebear. It doesn't take much insight into racial attitudes to understand the real meaning of the Indian -
“When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours.”
As quoted in "Vine Deloria Jr." by Melissa Lorenz EMuseum @ Minnesota State University, Mankato (2008) -
“The breakup of Christianity during the Reformation into national churches and the proliferation of denominations today would seem to indicate that a religious universality cannot be successfully maintained across racial and ethnic lines. ... Ethnicity will almost always triumph.”
p. 209
Vine Deloria Jr. on Life
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“When ecologists find a predictable life-span of a generation separating us from total extinction, it would seem that we have a duty to search for another interpretation of mankind’s life story.”
As quoted in "Daniel Quinn: Another Interpretation of the ‘Meaning of Life" by Nicolae Tanase, at Excellence Reporter (28 March 2016) -
“As quoted in "Daniel Quinn: Another Interpretation of the ‘Meaning of Life" by Nicolae Tanase, at Excellence Reporter (28 March 2016)”
When ecologists find a predictable life-span of a generation separating us from total extinction, it would seem that we have a duty to search for another interpretation of mankind’s life story.
Vine Deloria Jr. on Nature
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Attributed to Vine Deloria Jr.:
“The land is not a resource; the land is a relative.”
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Attributed to Vine Deloria Jr.:
“Western thought began in fear of the wild; indigenous thought began in respect for it.”
Vine Deloria Jr. on Politics
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Attributed to Vine Deloria Jr.:
“Sovereignty is not a gift bestowed by another sovereign; it is the original condition of a people.”
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Attributed to Vine Deloria Jr.:
“We are not vanishing; we have always been here.”
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“Foreword to Words of Power: Voices from Indian America (1994), also quoted in "Vine Deloria, Jr." at Indigenous Peoples Literature (2015) by Glen Welker”
Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. Today with an information "superhighway" now looming on the horizon, we are told that a lack of access to information will doom people to a life of meaninglessness — and poverty. As we look around and observe modern industrial society, however, there is n -
“As quoted in "Vine Deloria Jr." by Melissa Lorenz EMuseum @ Minnesota State University, Mankato (2008)”
When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours. -
“Before any final solution to American history can occur, a reconciliation must be effected between the spiritual owner of the land – American Indians – and the political owner of the land – American Whites. Guilt and accusations cannot continue to revolve in a vacuum without some effort at reaching a solution.”
pg. 75
Things actually not said by Vine Deloria Jr.
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Vine Deloria Jr. but are in fact from someone else. Did Vine Deloria Jr. say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Vine Deloria Jr. say this? No.
“Religion is for people who’re afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who’ve already been there.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Commonly attributed to Deloria on the internet, or sometimes to a few others, but without legitimate sourcing, the earliest variant of this yet located is a single quotation in Awakened India Vo. 99 (1994) p. 327, ascribed to Fr. Patrick Collins, University of Notre Dame, USA: