Top 12 Aztec Quotes - Quoted Daily

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?'

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

Aztec, Faces, Life Is

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

Everything that is really Mexican is either Aztec or Spanish.

Edward Burnett Tylor

Aztec, Mexican

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

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

Samael Aun Weor

Art, Philosophy, Aztec

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, Aztec, Sage

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, Aztec

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

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, Aztec

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

Aztec, Office, Waiting

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

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, Aztec, Achievement

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

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

Ilona Andrews

Aztec, Style, Taco Bell

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

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

Sarah Vowell

Aztec, Cacao, Cafes

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

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

Aztec, Essence, Cities