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Arnold J. Toynbee
b. 4-14-1889; London, England
d. 10-2-1975
Arnold J. Toynbee was the author of the twelve-volume A Study of History (1934-61). Toynbee presented the rise and fall of civilizations as a global rhythm or cycle of challenge and response. He identified the breakdown of civilizations with the loss of creative energy in the “creative minorities”, which lead to a loss of social unity.
Many historians are critical of Toynbee's use of myth and metaphor alongside factual data.
Arnold J. Toynbee quotes ~
• “A city that outdistances man's walking powers is a trap for man.”
• “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.”
• “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.”
• “Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.”
• “History is a vision of God's creation on the move.”
• “I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil.”
• “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.”
• “The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”
• “The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.”
• Experiment in Depth: A Study of the Work of Jung, Eliot & Toynbee , P.W. Martin
Carl Gustav Jung, T.S. Eliot
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