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Aztec Quotes

Browse 26 quotes about Aztec.

Aztec Quotes

“Sometimes we also find a tendency to view everything that's indigenous as good and anything "European"-such as Spain-as evil. That view overlooks such historical realities as the Aztec empire's oppressive domination of other indigenous societies and its class system, which privileged priests and the military. That view also forgets Spain was not a typically European nation after 600 years of rule by the Moors, an Arab/Berber people from Africa.”

ClassAfricaSpainMoorsAztecEuropeanAztecsBerber
Book:De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century
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“[Sin ese libro], tú no podrías escuchar nada sobre nuestra tradición de resistencia femenina a la opresión, que se remonta a la mujer nativa que tomó los techos de las casas en lo que luego se convertiría en México e "hizo llover dardos y piedras" sobre los invasores españoles. O a la mujer que, en Oaxaca, demandó a su esposo por abuso y logró que su caso llegara a la corte en 1630. O a las mujeres Maya que encerró al cura español en su iglesia por no aceptar que se enterraran a las víctimas mayas de una epidemia de tifus en tierras de la iglesia. O a las masivas "Revueltas del Maíz" de 1962 realizadas por mujeres que se rehusaban a morir de hambre. [Without a book like this] you would not hear about our tradition of female resistance to oppression, going back to Aztec women who took to the rooftops in what later became Mexico City and ‘rained down darts and stones’ on the invading Spainiards. Or the woman who filed suit in Oaxaca against her husband for abuse and had her case heard in court-in 1630! Or the Maya women who lackeed up the local Spanish priest in his church for not having Maya victims of a typhus epidemic buried in church ground. And the massive ‘Corn Riots’ of 1692 by women who refused to starve.”

HistoryOppressionMayaMexico CityAztecChicanoChicanaOaxacaChicanas
Book:500 Years of Chicana Women's History / 500 Años de la Mujer Chicana: Bilingual Edition
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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.”

WorldWaitingProcessEnjoyModernDrinkOfficeMarketingLifestyleInventionPostsEmpiresNeighborhoodChocolateChemicalsGenocideNew WorldCapitalistCreamConsumerismImperialismDutchBittersweetSeattleStarbucksCafesPost OfficeCocoaWhipped CreamAztecHersheyMochaCacao
Author:Sarah Vowell
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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.”

IfsTwoStatesEarthPowerfulKnownDegreesBiggerWestChinaRussiaThirtyEmpiresExpandingAlliancesDominionStaggeringZimbabweDynastyLatitudeWest AfricaCairoOttomansOttoman EmpireAztec
Book:1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
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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.”

IfsTwoWarStatesAmericaStrongCenturyCapableDiscoveryIndependenceChinaNativeJapanThis DayMexicoTacticsMaintainingNorth AmericaAdoptingDelayedAztecIroquois
Book:The Oxford history of the American people
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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.”

IfsWantGodCoursesCan DoFireRiskTelevisionPassionateActiveAbandonLeapParticipationRelationship With GodRisk ItPotteryAztec
Author:Andrew Harvey
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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.”

IfsWorldFirstsHumansRealFactsAgeCultureLiteratureFictionHeardAchievementDeservePraiseScience FictionSouthWorthyComparisonSensationsImaginativeAntiquityOld WorldTreadingSpaniardsAztec
Book:Trans-Pacific Echoes and Resonances: Listening Once Again
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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”

MenWorldChildrenPersonsAmericaHumanityDifferencesHistoryVirtueMen And WomenAdultsMercyCrueltyIslandsNew WorldContinentsColonialismInferiorsPrudenceGoverningApesMercifulIngenuityInferiorityBarbariansProdigiousSpaniardsBad TemperAztec
Author:Juan Gines de Sepulveda
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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.”

MenLove IsAnimalExistenceKnownGraceHorrorMythCharmGoddessPerpetualTendernessDirtProstitutionGrudgeGod Is LoveUnlovableGods And GoddessesAztec
Book:Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
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