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Arnold J. Toynbee Quotes

1889–1975 England

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was a British historian and the nephew of Arnold Toynbee.

England
Historians
Non-fiction authors
Philosophers

Also known as: Arnold Joseph Toynbee

Random Arnold J. Toynbee quote

52 quotes

Societies, not states, are 'the social atoms' with which students of history have to deal.

A Study of History (1934)

Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.

The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose (1976)

The notion that the direct and immediate producers of the fruits of technology have a proprietary right to these fruits will have to be forgotten.

Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour.

Civilization on Trial (1948)

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

A Study of History (1934)

No being can be what he is unless he is putting his essence into action in his field.

A Study of History (1934)

The difference between a Humanist and a lunatic is in fact one of degree.

A Study of History (1934)

The value of the goal lies in the goal itself; and therefore the goal cannot be attained unless it is pursued for its own sake.

A Study of History (1934)

There is no such thing as gratitude in international politics.

A Study of History (1934)

The Hellenization of Rome was, of course, the most important cultural conquest that the Hellenes ever achieved at any stage of their history.

A Study of History (1934)

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

A Study of History (1934)

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

The local national state, invested with the attributes of sovereignty — is an abomination of desolation standing in the place where it ought not. It has stood in that place now — demanding and receiving human sacrifices from its poor deluded votaries — for four or five centuries.

The Trend of International Affairs Since the War (1931)

The history of almost every civilization furnishes examples of geographical expansion coinciding with deterioration in quality.

A Study of History (1934)

We have been Godlike in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbitlike in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.

As human beings, we are endowed with this freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.

Civilization on Trial (1948)

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.

Civilization on Trial (1948)

These immense cities lie basking on the beaches of the continent like whales that have taken to the land again. What do these great, sleek, well-fed creatures live on so sumptuously?

East to West: A Journey Round the World (1958)

The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.

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.

A Study of History (1934)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Arnold J. Toynbee (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.