Quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee

About Arnold J. Toynbee:

Arnold Joseph Toynbee was 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Arnold J. Toynbee

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.

Arnold J. Toynbee

History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don't use the stuff well, it might as well be dead.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Arnold J. Toynbee

Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Arnold J. Toynbee

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.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Arnold J. Toynbee

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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.

Arnold J. Toynbee

A city that outdistances man's walking powers is a trap for man.

Arnold J. Toynbee

The immense cities lie basking on the beaches of the continent like whales that have taken to the land.

Arnold J. Toynbee

I do not believe that civilizations have to die because civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills.

Arnold J. Toynbee

I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil.

Arnold J. Toynbee

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Arnold J. Toynbee

Author Bio

  • NameArnold J. Toynbee
  • DescriptionBritish historian, author of A Study of History
  • AliasesArnold J. Toynbee; Toynbee; Arnold Joseph Toynbee
  • BornApril 14, 1889
  • DiedOctober 22, 1975
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionHistorian