Arnold Joseph Toynbee, 1889 - 1975
TIME magazine cover (17 March 1947)
Born: 14 April 1889, London, England, UK
Died: 22 October 1975, York, England, UK
Toynbee was raised at London, educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. He taught at Balliol College briefly, then King's College London, the London School of Economics, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Not only a student and teacher of history, he helped make some of it, serving in the British Foreign Office through both world wars and attending both Paris peace conferences (1919 and 1946). In his 12-volume A Study of History he identified 23 distinct civilizations throughout history (seven still in existence), analyzing their origins, their strengths, and the eventual collapse of most of them. His central thesis was that civilizations emerge due to responses to challenges in the environment, and those that cannot continue to respond will fail; unlike some comparative historians he did not see the rise and fall of civilizations governed by an inevitable cycle. Although highly regarded during his career, he has been widely criticized in recent decades.
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Arnold J. Toynbee quotes:
Quotes found : 41 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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- A city that outdistances man's walking powers is a trap for man. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - A life which does not go into action is a failure. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - Anxiety and conscience are a powerful pair of dynamos. Between them, they have ensured that I shall work hard, but they cannot ensure that one shall work at anything worthwhile. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - 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 up to us. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - 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. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - History is a vision of God's creation on the move. permalink
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. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - History teaches us that when a barbarian race confronts a sleeping culture, the barbarian always wins. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee - I do not believe that civilizations have to die because civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills. permalink
Arnold J. Toynbee
Quotes found : 41 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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