Arnold Toynbee
FameRank: 5

"Arnold Toynbee" was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland/British economic history/economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working classes.

More Arnold Toynbee on Wikipedia.

Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.

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.

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

A life which does not go into action is a failure.

We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

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.

America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.

History is a vision of God's creation on the move.

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.

When I had got my notes all written out I thought I'd polish it off in two summers, but it took me twenty-seven years.