Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CHwas a British historian, philosopher of history, research professor of International History at the London School of Economics and the University of London and author of numerous books. Toynbee in the 1918–1950 period was a leading specialist on international affairs...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth14 April 1889
Arnold J. Toynbee quotes about
determination work live-life
The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.
inspirational motivational believe
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
change wisdom art
Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
believe civilization ifs-and
Civilizations, I believe, come to birth and proceed to grow by successfully responding to successive challenges. They break down and go to pieces if and when a challenge confronts them that they fail to meet.
civilization umpires two
Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.
suicide civilization murder
Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.
love inspire different
Love's way of dealing with us is different from conscience's way. Conscience commands; love inspires. What we do out of love, we do because we want to.
war civilization class
Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern Western historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we diagnose each case... we invariably find that the cause of death has been either War or Class or some combination of the two.
freedom responsibility choices
As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is our responsibility.
freedom islamic race
The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.
children men choices
The course of human history consists of a series of encounters between individual human beings and God in which each man and woman or child, in turn, is challenged by God to make his free choice between doing God's will and refusing to do it.
attitude race self
It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history , the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family.
inspirational motivational success
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.
loss civilization creative
On this showing, the nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole.