Arnold J Toynbee Quotes

The West has never been all of the world that matters. The West has not been the only actor on the stage of modern history even at the peak of the West's power (and this peak has perhaps now already been passed) ... It has not been the West that has been hit by the world; it has been the world that has been hit - and hit hard - by the West. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

The absolute value of love makes life worth while, and so makes Man's strange and difficult situation acceptable. Love cannot save life from death; but it can fulfill life's purpose. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

Material power that is not counterbalanced by adequate spiritual power, that is, by love and wisdom, is a curse ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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. ~ 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

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

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. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

Immaturity means self-centeredness, inability to compromise, to rise above hurt feelings, to postpone immediate pleasures in favor of future benefits, or to do unpleasant chores when they need to be done. ~ 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 our responsibility. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese
and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace.
Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. ~ Eric Hoffer

We shall have to share out the fruits of technology among the whole of mankind. 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. After all, who is the producer? Man is a social animal, and the immediate producer has been helped to produce by the whole structure of society, beginning with his own education. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

The twentieth century will be chiefly remembered by future generations not as an era of political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterised by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole. ~ 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

Angkor is perhaps the greatest of Man's essays in rectangular architecture that has yet been brought to life. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

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

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability. ~ Arnold J. Rimmer Red Dwarf

In the case of such "besetting" evil thoughts, our natural reaction is often suppression: to push the offending idea back down, deep into our subconscious, in order to rid ourselves of it quickly. But that never works.
The most effective way to truly rid our mind of a suppressed thought is to face it squarely and reject it. ~ J. Heinrich Arnold

Toynbee offers his own explanation of how and why societies survive and prosper. It is the leadership of "creative minorities" that keeps societies alive and flourishing. But when the "creative" minority becomes a "dominant" minority, imposing its will by force and oppression, then poletariats (internal and external) are created and the society disintegrates. Though fervent and profuse with the data of his "English empiricism," Toynbee still developed his own mystique to replace "destiny." The real progress of a civilization consists in what Toynbee calls "etherialization"-"an overcoming of material obstacles which releases the energy of the society to make responses to challenges which henceforth are internal rather than external, spiritual rather than material. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Football is not a game but a religion, a metaphysical island of fundamental truth in a highly verbalized, disguised society, a throwback of 30,000 generations of anthropological time. ~ Arnold J. Mandell

12 Arnold Grove, Merseyside. ~ J.P. Walker

The Body Is Very Important, But The Mind Is MORE Important Than The Body ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lost ~ Kevin Arnold

Dr. Arnold ... the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings. ~ Bertrand Russell

That's who unconditional love is for - dogs and their masters, fools and their gods. ~ Elana K. Arnold

Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams! Birth-less and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever. Death hath not touched it all, dead though the house of it seems! ~ Edwin Arnold

We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

When most people use the word 'freedom' nowadays, they use it in the sense of the French Revolutionaries: freedom from tradition, from established social institutions, from religious doctrines, from prescriptive duties. I think that this employment of the word does much mischief. For we do not live in an age - and there are such ages - which is oppressed by the dead weight of archaic establishments and obsolete custom. The danger in our era, rather, is that the fountains of the great deep will be broken up and that the pace of alteration will be so rapid that generation cannot link with generation. Our era, necessarily, is what Matthew Arnold called an epoch of concentration. Or, at least, the thinking American needs to turn his talents to concentration, the buttressing and reconstruction of our moral and social heritage. This is a time not for anarchic freedom, but for ordered freedom. There are much older and stronger concepts of freedom than that espoused by the French Revolutionaries. In the Christian tradition, freedom is submission to the will of God. This is no paradox. As he that would save his life must lose it, so the man who desires true freedom must recognize a providential order which gives all freedoms their sanction. The theory of 'natural rights' depends upon the premise of an on alterable human nature bestowed upon man by God. Only acceptance of the divine order can give enduring freedom to a society; for this lacking, there is no reason why the strong and th ~ Russell Kirk

I remember like it was yesterday. I remember because it was the last time we held hands ~ David Arnold

In a policy shift which the historian Guy de la Bedoyere has compared with Western Imperialism, the Romans converted militant Britons to their way of life with consumer entincements, introducing them to the urbane pleasures of hot spas and fine dining, encouraging them to wear togas and speak Latin. ~ Catharine Arnold

That eugenics was part of the progressive agenda is one of the most heavily-airbrushed features of history. ~ Arnold Kling

All this I bear, for, what I seek, I know: Peace, peace is what I seek, and public calm: Endless extinction of unhappy hates. ~ Matthew Arnold

Although women participate in literary social life from the very beginning, they are not the centre of the courtly salons of the Renaissance; and later on, the age of the middle-class salon, they become the centre in quite a different sense than in the age of chivalry. Incidentally, the cultural importance of women is only another expression of the rationalism of the Renaissance. They are regarded as the intellectuals equals of men, but not as their superiors. "Everything that men can understand, can also be understood by women," to quote from the Cortegiano; but the gallantry which Castiglione demands of the courtier has no longer much in common with the woman-worship of the knights. The Renaissance is a masculine age; women like Lucrezia Borgia, who kept court in Nepi, or even Isabella dEste, who was the centre fo the court in Ferrara and Mantua and who not only had a stimulating influence on the poets of her entourage but also seems to have been a connoisseur of the plastic arts, are exceptions. Nearly everywhere the leading patrons and friends of art are men. ~ Arnold Hauser

I was the first son and first child. When my sister came along, well, she was two years younger, and I had to go to the golf course because my mother couldn't handle all the action going on. So I came with father to the golf course since I was a year and a half old and I spent the day with him here, and it worked in naturally. And it was fun for me being with my father, and doing things that a kid did it was great. ~ Arnold Palmer

I look for a sense of reality with everything I did. I didn't work in a studio, I didn't light anything. I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn't have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me and £5 worth of film in my pocket or maybe it was only £2 in those days. ~ Eve Arnold

I've stated my position, and that is that we do not need a contraption to play the game of golf. I would hope that we'd play under one set of rules, and those rules would include a ban on the long putter hooked to the body in some way, shape or form. ~ Arnold Palmer

The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

My problem happens to be near-sightedness - inability to see distance. And this is pretty tough on a golfer. ~ Arnold Palmer

When I was 15 years old I felt totally confident I would become a world champion and the greatest bodybuilder in the world. The same was true of show business - I knew that one day I would make more money than anyone else in the industry and I did. For that you need the willingness to work and do everything it takes to make the vision turn into reality. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

I will not fail, I will not disappoint you, I will not let you down. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

I'm particularly proud of anything the House and the Senate agree on, ~ Arnold Palmer

My whole life everyone always said 'it can't be done', 'you'll never do it', 'you will fail', 'no one has ever gone from Austria and become a Mr Universe, blah, blah, blah', or when I ran for governor people were sceptical. It was 'you're going to lose' and 'people don't take people from show-business seriously in politics'. So, I've heard all the 'it's impossible' thing but I didn't pay any attention because I believed that I could do it. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

A girl can talk about my nose, my teeth or my accent - anything that gets a conversation going is fine with me. It is weird, though, the way women respond to my body. Maybe 50 percent respond positively right away, while another 25 or 30 percent need a while to adjust to my size and to realize that ordinarily my muscles are soft, just like anyone's, only bigger. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

I think about how quickly things have changed for me. But that's the personality of change, isn't it? When it's slow, it's called growth; when it's fast, it's change. And God, how things change: some things, nothings, anythings, everything… all the things change. ~ David Arnold

One must, I think, be struck more and more the longer one lives, to find how much in our present society a man's life of each day depends for its solidity and value upon whether he reads during that day, and far more still on what he reads during it. ~ Matthew Arnold

If you can go through the pain period, you make it to be a champion. If you can't go through it, forget it. And that's what most people lack: having the guts - the guts to go in and just say ... "I don't care what happens" ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

Love is the biggest mystery of the universe. But why try to solve it, when one simply view it for what it is and marvel at the wonders and strangeness it brings? ~ Arnold Arre

Because of the economies of scale in data, the cloud giants are increasingly powerful. And because they're so susceptible to regulation, these companies have a vested interest in keeping government entities happy. When the Justice Department requested billions of search records from AOL, Yahoo, and MSN in 2006, the three companies quickly complied. (Google, to its credit, opted to fight the request.) Stephen Arnold, an IT expert who worked at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, says that Google at one point housed three officers of "an unnamed intelligence agency" at its headquarters in Mountain View. And Google and the CIA have invested together in a firm called Recorded Future, which focuses on using data connections to predict future real-world events. ~ Eli Pariser

You cannot expect the Form before the Idea,For they will come into being together. ~ Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schwarzenegger met with President Bush. It's amazing if you think about it. It was the Terminator and the One-Term-inator. ~ David Letterman

Within twenty years, he was the world's biggest movie star, the husband of Maria Shriver, and an emerging Republican leader who was part of the Kennedy family. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

As long as I live, I will never forget that day 21 years ago when I raised my hand and took the oath of citizenship. Do you know how proud I was? I was so proud that I walked around with an American flag around my shoulders all day long. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

The mind always fails first, not the body. The secret is to make your mind work for you, not against you. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

I never wanted to be a career politician. I always am interested just to take on challenges that everyone says are impossible to do and to take it on. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

The manner of his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had once been young. That he had grown old, and was now dead. That was all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to that. Everything came to that. ~ Arnold Bennett

Every honest attempt to discover the truth and depict things faithfully is a struggle against one's own subjectivity and partiality, one's individual and class interests; one can seek to become aware of these as a source of error, while realizing that they can never be finally excluded. ~ Arnold Hauser