Daily Inspiration Quote by Sitting Bull

A line that sounds almost serene lands like a rebuke. Sitting Bull’s “Each man is good in His sight” invokes a moral order older than U.S. law and bigger than any treaty: the Creator’s authority. It’s a strategic move. By placing value judgment in divine “sight,” he denies the colonizer’s favorite power play - defining who counts as “civilized,” “worthy,” or “advanced.” If goodness is already recognized by God, then it doesn’t need Washington’s certification.

The second sentence is the knife under the blanket. “It is not necessary for eagles to be crows” is a refusal of forced assimilation disguised as simple natural history. Eagles don’t audition for crowhood; they aren’t improved by imitation. The metaphor quietly flips the hierarchy. In Euro-American symbolism, eagles signify empire, but here the eagle is Indigenous selfhood: distinct, sovereign, built for a different sky. The crow becomes the pressure to conform - a stand-in for imported norms, schooling, religion, labor, language. The point isn’t that one bird is “better”; it’s that coercive sameness is a kind of violence.

Context sharpens the intent. Sitting Bull spoke from inside an era of relentless federal encroachment - broken agreements, military campaigns, reservation confinement, then the machinery of cultural erasure. His statesmanship often worked by moral judo: using the occupier’s own vocabulary (God, virtue, dignity) to expose the poverty of their logic. The subtext is diplomatic but unyielding: recognize difference without demanding surrender. Respect isn’t charity; it’s letting an eagle remain an eagle.