Quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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 t...”

“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.”

“Enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first an ideal which takes the imagination by storm and sec ond a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.”

“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.”

“Enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first an ideal which takes the imagination by storm and sec ond a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.”

“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.”

“When God made Baluchistan, he laughed.”

“Our western science is a child of moral virtues; and it must now become the father of further moral virtues if its extraordinary material triumphs in our time are not to bring human history to an a...”

“I don’t believe a committee can write a book. ... It can, oh, govern a country, perhaps. But I don’t believe it can write a book.”

“[T]he equation of religion with belief is rather recent.”

“India is the central link in a chain of regional civilizations that extends from Japan in the far north-east to Ireland in the far northwest. Between these two extremities the chain sags down south...”

“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.”