Best Aztecs Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“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.”

Class Africa Spain Moors Aztec European Aztecs Berber

Book:De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century

Source: De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century

“You leave behind your fine poems. You leave behind your beautiful flowers. And the earth that was only leant to you. You ascend into the Light, O Quechomitl, you leave behind the flowers and the singing and the earth. Safe journey, O friend.”

Death Poems Aztecs

Book:Servant of the Underworld

Source: Servant of the Underworld

“This fifth and final sun will die, Like every sun before— But for a moment we laughed in its light, Like wind-blown petals Sparkling near an exile’s campfire Before the flames take them.”

Poetry Aztecs Fifth Sun

Book:Shattering and Bricolage

Source: Shattering and Bricolage

“All the earth is a grave, and nought escapes it; nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks, fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the wider they spread between their marges the more rapidly do they mould their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not to-day; and let not that which is to-day trust to live to-morrow.”

Death Aztecs Nahuatl

Book:Ancient Nahuatl Poetry, Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems : Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII.

Source: Ancient Nahuatl Poetry, Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems : Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII.

“Who could truly set His shield to rest? His throne? His mighty spear? Think on that. Remember it well, O princes. Who could lay waste to Tenochtitlan? Who dares assail the foundation of heaven?”

Poetry Aztecs

Book:Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

Source: Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

“I love the song of the mockingbird, Bird of four hundred voices, I love the color of jade And the intoxicating scent of flowers, But more than all I love my brother, man.”

Inspirational Poetry Universal Love Aztecs

Author:Nezahualcóyotl

“Another of the great civilizations, the Aztecs, raised a breed of hairless chihuahuas especially for eating. When the Conquistadors arrived and found dog on the menu, they were of the same opinion as Mademoiselle, that this was evidence of the worst form of barbarism. They, the Spaniards, used dogs as befits civilized and Christian men - to hunt down fugitive Indians and tear them to pieces.”

Dogs Christians Spaniards Aztecs Conquistador

Book:The Decadent Cookbook

Source: The Decadent Cookbook

“I still couldn’t banish the image of the Quetzal Flower. In my mind, it merged with that of Priestess Eleuia: everything a man could desire or aspire to, a woman who would suck the marrow from your bones and still leave you smiling.”

Lust Aztecs

Book:Servant of the Underworld

Source: Servant of the Underworld

“In the place of the bells, where battle is waged, The reeds all lie broken in Chalco today. Dust yellows the air, our houses are smoking, The sobbing is rising—from the lips of your Chalcans!”

Poetry Aztecs

Book:Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

Source: Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

“O friends, to a good place we've come to live, come in springtime! In that place a very brief moment! So brief is life!”

Poetry Mortality Life Is Short Enjoying Life Aztecs

Author:Nezahualcóyotl

“We will pass away. I, Nezahualcoyotl, say, enjoy! Do we really live on earth? Ohuaya, ohuaya. Not forever on earth, only a brief time here! Even jades fracture; even gold ruptures, even quetzal plumes tear: Not forever on earth: only a brief time here! Ohuaya, ohuaya.”

Poetry Mortality Carpe Diem Time Passing Enjoying Life Aztecs

Author:Nezahualcóyotl

“The pleasures and riches of this life are but loaned, their substance is vain, their appearance illusory; and so true is this that I ask thee for an answer to these questions: What has become of Cihuapan? Of the brave Quantzintecomatzin? Of Conahuatzin? What of all these people? Perhaps these very words have already passed into another life. Would that we who are now united by the ties of love and friendship could foresee the sharp edge of death, for nothing is certain, and the future ever brings changes.”

Poetry Humility Carpe Diem Time Passing Aztecs Humility Vs Vanity

Author:Nezahualcóyotl

“Some readers who have visited New Spain, and other interested persons who have not, may be aware that Mexico was a very large city, built in the water like Venice, and governed by a great prince called Montezuma, who was a king of many neighbouring lands and ruled over the whole of New Spain, which is a country twice the size of out own.”

Aztecs Conquistadors Mesoamerica

Book:The Conquest of New Spain

Source: The Conquest of New Spain

“And as we came among the houses we saw how large a town it was, larger than any we had yet seen, and were fll of admiration. It was so green with vegetation that it looked like a garden; and its streets were so full of men and women who had some out to see us that we gave thanks to God for the discovery of such a country.”

Mexico Aztecs Mesoamerica

Book:The Conquest of New Spain

Source: The Conquest of New Spain

“Letters and diaries sometimes bring us close to grand moments or touching scenes in the history of Euro-Americans, but harkening back to the thoughts and feelings of the less powerful, we meet only silence”

Invaders Indigenous Peoples Aztecs

Book:Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

Source: Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

“When the Spaniards first arrived in Mexico, natives bearing incense burners were assigned to accompany them wherever they went. The Spaniards thought it was a mark of divine honour. We know from native sources that they found the newcomers’ smell unbearable.”

Mexico Colonialism Aztecs

Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Source: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“How much blood was shed! It was our father’s blood! And what for? Why was it done? Learn it once and for all: because they want to impose themselves upon us, because they are utterly gold hungry, voracious of what belongs to others: our chiefdoms, our revered women and daughters, and our lands.” (160)”

Aztecs Mexican History

Author:Miguel León-Portilla

“As is well known but quickly forgotten, the victors ordinarily write history. The losers are usually silenced or, if this is impossible, they are dismissed as liars, censored for being traitors, or left to circulate harmlessly in the confined spaces of the defeated.” (xi)”

Aztecs Mexican History

Author:Miguel León-Portilla

“Virtually all the accounts of the Aztec Empire were written by the Spaniards who overthrew it, so they have to be read with considerable skepticism. It is all the more important, then, to be able to examine what we can consider unadulterated Aztec sources, the things made by them that have survived.”

History Aztecs Aztec Empire

Book:A History of the World in 100 Objects

Source: A History of the World in 100 Objects