Aztec Quotes

• The Sun Stone, the famous Aztec calendar, is unquestionably a perfect summary of science, philosophy, art and religion.

  Samael Aun Weor

  Art, Philosophy, Perfect

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• A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride...When people see it they know it means dignity.

  Cesar Chavez

  Mean, Pride, Eagles

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• Life is but a mask worn on the face of death. And is death, then, but another mask? 'How many can say,' asks the Aztec poet, 'that there is, or is not, a truth beyond?'

  Joseph Campbell

  Faces, Life Is, Truth Is

  Joseph Campbell, M. J. Abadie (1981). “The Mythic Image”, p.160, Princeton University Press

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• Everything that is really Mexican is either Aztec or Spanish.

  Edward Burnett Tylor

  Mexican

  Edward Burnett Tylor (1861). “Anahuac; Or, Mexico and the Mexicans: Ancient and Modern”, p.50

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• In Náhuatl, the language of the Aztec world, one key word for poet was 'tlamatine,' meaning 'the one who knows,' or 'he who knows something.' Poets were considered 'sages of the word,' who meditated on human enigmas and explored the beyond, the realm of the gods.

  Edward Hirsch

  Keys, Sage, World

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• The Aztec gods and goddesses are, as far as we have known anything about them, an unlovely and unlovable lot. In their myths there is no grace or charm, no poetry. Only this perpetual grudge, grudge, grudging, one god grudging another, the gods grudging men their existence, and men grudging the animals. The goddess of love is goddess of dirt and prostitution, a dirt-eater, a horror, without a touch of tenderness.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Animal, Love Is, Men

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.7472, Delphi Classics

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• America may not realize it yet, but Latin prototypes are being created right now, and not just by me. They are these mambo kings and salsa queens, Aztec lords and Inca princesses, every Hernandez and Fernandez, whom this country will one day come to understand and respect.

  John Leguizamo

  Country, Queens, Kings

  The New York Times, July 14, 1991.

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• If the European discovery had been delayed for a century or two, it is possible that the Aztec in Mexico or the Iroquois in North America would have established strong native states capable of adopting European war tactics and maintaining their independence to this day, as Japan kept her independence from China.

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Strong, War, Discovery

  Samuel Eliot Morison (1972). “The Oxford history of the American people”, Signet

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• The Spaniards are perfectly right to govern these barbarians of the New World and adjacent islands; they are in prudence, ingenuity, virtue, and humanity as inferior to the Spaniards as children are to adults and women are to men, there being as much difference between them as that between wild and cruel and very merciful persons, the prodigiously intemperate and the continent and tempered, and I daresay from apes to men

  Juan Gines de Sepulveda

  Children, Men, Differences

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• In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude—as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo.

  Charles C. Mann

  Powerful, Russia, Two

  Charles C. Mann (2006). “1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”, p.74, Vintage

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• If you want a television, you go out and work for it and you buy it. If you want to learn about Aztec pottery, you take a course. But the relationship with God requires the active and passionate participation of you, yourself. You have to risk it. You have to abandon yourself to it. You have to leap into the fire. Nobody will do it for you; nobody can do it for you.

  Andrew Harvey

  God, Fire, Risk

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• The modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top

  Sarah Vowell

  Cacao, Cafes, Mocha

  Sarah Vowell (2003). “The Partly Cloudy Patriot”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• To put it in a nutshell, the Central and South American high cultures of antiquity were entirely worthy of comparison with what the Old World had achieved by the time of the Han, the Gupta, and the Hellenistic age. The fact is that the Amerindian high cultures were a human modality of their own, and those Spaniards who came among them first would have had the sensation, if they had ever heard of such literature, of treading in a world of imaginative science fiction. But it was real, and the Amerindian achievements deserve all our sympathy and praise.

  Joseph Needham

  Real, Achievement, Age

  Joseph Needham, Gwei-Djen Lu (1985). “Trans-Pacific Echoes and Resonances: Listening Once Again”, p.64, World Scientific

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• Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.

  Sarah Vowell

  Office, Waiting, Chocolate

  "The Partly Cloudy Patriot". Book by Sarah Vowell, 2001.

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• The decorator of Las Colimas must have been a great admirer of both early Aztec and late Taco Bell architectural styles.

  Ilona Andrews

  Style, Taco Bell, Bells

  Ilona Andrews (2012). “Magic Bites: A Special Edition of the First Kate Daniels Novel”, p.49, Penguin

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• My home has a split personality. Some of the rooms are very French antique. Think Aubusson rugs, turquoise ceramic jugs, sandbag pillows, and broken birdcages. The other half is very Aztec. Neon ikat fabric pillows, vintage books piled up to the ceiling, and shutters from Bali.

  Poppy Delevingne

  Book, Home, Thinking

  "10 Questions: Poppy Delevingne" by Yale Breslin, www.elle.com. October 9, 2012.

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• In essence, the Mexica remained little more than a band of pirates, sallying forth from their great city to loot and plunder and to submit vast areas to tribute payment, without altering the essential social constitution of their victims

  Eric Wolf

  Essence, Cities, Pirate

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• Aztec has played a big part in delivering the solutions that our Dallas office has spent timeless hours and energy searching for.

  Blake Lewis

  Office, Energy, Dallas

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• See it was like this when we waltz into this place. A couple of papish cats is doing an Aztec two-step And I says Dad let's cut but then this dame comes up behind me see and says you and me could really exist Wow I says Only the next day she has bad teeth and really hates poetry.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Couple, Dad, Hate

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1958). “A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

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• Cold morning on Aztec Peak Fire Lookout. First, build fire in old stove. Second, start coffee. Then, heat up last night's pork chops and spinach for breakfast. Why not? And why the hell not?

  Edward Abbey

  Morning, Coffee, Night

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.16, RosettaBooks

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