Quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee

“[E]very oasis is an island that has water inside it but not round it.”

“A city that outdistances Man's walking powers is a trap for Man. It threatens to become a prison from which he cannot escape unless he has mechanical means of transport, the thoroughfares for carry...”

“When I was a child, the institution of war, which, by then, had been in existence for perhaps about five thousand years, was still being taken for granted by most people in the World as a normal an...”

“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 frui...”

“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.”

“Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a...”

“If we are frank with ourselves, we shall admit that we are engaged on a deliberate and sustained and concentrated effort to impose limitations upon the sovereignty and independence of the fifty or ...”

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

“No collection of facts is ever complete, because the Universe is without bounds. And no synthesis or interpretation is ever final, because there are always fresh facts to be found after the first c...”

“Compared with the life-span of a human being the time-span of a civilization is so vast that a human observer cannot hope to take the measure of its curve unless he is in a position to view it in a...”

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

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

“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 m...”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“[S]o-called racial characteristics are not really racial at all but are due to the historical experiences of the communities in question.”

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

“There is no such thing as gratitude in international politics.”

“[T]he dogma that History is just one damned thing after another...”