http://www.carolhansengrey.com/Quotes/Native_Quotes.html

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/81466.A_A_Milne

The Battle of the Two

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson
about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between
two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil.
It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.
It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute
and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?" 

The old Cherokee simply replied,
"The one you feed."

—A Native American Metaphor

“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” 

-Winnie the pooh

     The Winnie the Pooh cartoon is not a complete revision of a Native American poem but the basic point remains: Love conquers all. As you can see in the above examples, both prevail love and kindness. The Native American poem talks about how each person can either be good or evil and that they must chose to be good. The Winnie the Pooh quote talks about how when we act with kindness, we will not be quick to judge. Although the two are not similar in any other aspects of Native American culture, they do have one thing in common: good is better than evil. Both of these provide good advice to live our lives by and they can inspire us to be better people.

The Hunter and the Hunted

        There is an African Proverb for almost any situation in life. One African Proverb describes all of humanity perfectly: "Until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story". This quote means that sometimes, people chose to be close-minded and only listen to one side of a story, the hunter's story. The lion will always be seen as the enemy or lesser part of the picture. In today's society, people chose to listen to the story of the big and influential people in the world, rather than everyone involved. For example, people see an immigrant and suddenly think that he or she is incompetent and not as smart as the American citizen. The immigrant's story is never told. No one will ever know the hardships that person had to face to come to America, and no one will ever know what troubles he or she went through to actually survive in America. The citizen is then the hunter and the immigrant is the hunted or the lion. Since the hunter's story is more widespread, people chose to believe it without ever looking into the lion's story. I believe that this proverb is fully true. I have been the lion in different situations and most of the time, once the hunter's story is out there, it is too late to give a voice to yours.