How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.
Seattle
Seattle (c. 1784–1866), Native American chief of the Dwamish, Suquamish, and allied Indian tribes. Letter, 1854, to President Franklin Pierce. Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle (1990).
Attributed to Seattle; 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 a historical epic in 1971.