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We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and Protestants do. We do not want that. We may quarrel with men about things on earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that.

— Chief Joseph The Wisdom of the Native Americans (1999)

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Religion

More quotes by Chief Joseph

Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth.

You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

I never said the land was mine to do with it as I chose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my land, and accord you the privilege to live on yours.

The Indian Dispossessed (1906)

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other then we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike – brothers of one father and mother, with one sky above us and one country around us and one government for all.

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (1849)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Chief Joseph (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.