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.
Category Archive: Arnold J. Toynbee
The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.
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.
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 that ideal into practice.
A city that outdistances man’s walking powers is a trap for man.
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.
The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.
A life which does not go into action is a failure.
I do not believe that civilizations have to die because civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills.