Speaking of the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
“Dream beautiful dreams and then work to make those dreams come true.”
Cor Cordium, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“and the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming…”
“We had a beautiful dream and that was all.”
The interest of my son is the only guide I have, and whatever happiness I could achieve by being free of this place I cannot consent to separate my self from him. I could not have any pleasure in the world if I abandoned my children.I do not even have any regrets.
Marie Antoinette to the Chevalier Jarjayes on his persuading her to escape alone from the Tower; Lettres, II. p. 433; also quoted in Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001) by Antonia Fraser, ISBN 0307277747.
“Truth is more beautiful than dreams”
Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face
Context: What is there within us to-night? What is this sound of wings? Are our eyes opening as fast as night falls? Formerly, we had the sensual lovers' animal dread of nothingness; but to-day, the simplest and richest proof of our love is that the supreme meaning of death to us is — leaving each other.
And the bond of the flesh — neither are we afraid to think and speak of that, saying that we were so joined together that we knew each other completely, that our bodies have searched each other. This memory, this brand in the flesh, has its profound value; and the preference which reciprocally graces two beings like ourselves is made of all that they have and all that they had.
I stand up in front of Marie — already almost a convert — and I tremble and totter, so much is my heart my master: —
"Truth is more beautiful than dreams, you see."
“My dream was to give people a dream.”
As quoted in interview with Fumiya Akashika, RedDeer International, October 10, 2014 https://reddeervoice.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/lydia-canaan-passion-for-music-and-humanity/
