"Lakota believe profoundly in silence--the sign of a perfect equilibrium.  Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit.  They who preserve their selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence--not a leaf as it were, a stir in the trees; not a ripple upon the surface of a shining pool--this, in the mind of an unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life."
~Ohiyesha  (Charles Alexander Eastman)