| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 48910 |
| QUOTATION: | This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Seattle (c. 1784–1866), native American chief of the Dwamish, Suquamish and allied Native American tribes. Letter, 1854, to President Franklin Pierce. Published in Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle (1990).
The letter, in which Seattle pleaded that his name should die with the ceding of the Washington State territories, was shown in 1992 to have been largely a forgery, devised by television scriptwriter Ted Perry for an historical epic in 1971. |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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