Famous Inca Quotes

Some societies tried to solve the problem by establishing a central barter system that collected products from specialist growers and manufacturers and distributed them to those who needed them. The largest and most famous such experiment was conducted in the Soviet Union, and it failed miserably. ‘Everyone would work according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs’ turned out in practice into ‘everyone would work as little as they can get away with, and receive as much as they could grab’. More moderate and more successful experiments were made on other occasions, for example in the Inca Empire. Yet most societies found a more easy way to connect large numbers of experts – they developed money.

He had, of course, to keep working toward that end. It was His mission. And it still involves His personal 4,000-year-old commitment to God and to Abraham. And Jesus alone knew how wistfully peoples like the Karen, the Lahu, the Wa, the Lisu, the Kachin, the Mizo, the Naga, the Gedeo, the Santal, the Incas and thousands of others were waiting. He would not fail them (or us!) by letting that vision die. But there was an even stronger reason which caused Him to persist. Immediately after the near sacrifice of Isaac, Yahweh confirmed His covenant with Abraham with that famous oath! Notice: “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you [Abraham] have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you … and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Gen. 22:15-18).

Okavango Delta in Botswana to shots of the aurora borealis in Lapland. There were photographs taken as she’d hiked the Inca Trail, others from the Skeleton Coast in Namibia, still more among the ruins of Timbuktu. Twelve years ago, she’d learned to scuba dive and had spent ten days documenting marine life in Raja Ampat; four years ago, she’d hiked to the famous Paro Taktsang, or Tiger’s Nest,

The possibility that our grandchildren could be living forever among the ruins of a much wealthier and more peaceful world seems almost inconceivable from the vantage of the present day, so much do we still live within the propaganda of human progress and generational improvement. But of course it was a relatively common feature of human history before the advent of industrialization. It was the experience of the Egyptians after the invasion of the Sea Peoples and the Incas after Pizarro, the Mesopotamians after the Akkadian Empire, and the Chinese after the Tang Dynasty. It was—so famously that it grew into caricature, which then spawned decades of rhetorical critique—the experience of Europeans after the fall of Rome. But in this case, the dark ages would arrive within one generation of the light—close enough to touch, and share stories, and blame.