Arnold Toynbee quotes

Arnold Toynbee was a British historian and philosopher, renowned for his ambitious work on the study of civilizations. His most famous contribution is the multi-volume series "A Study of History," in which he analyzed the rise and fall of various societies. He emphasized the roles of challenge and response in shaping human history. Here are 16 of his quotes:

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. (Arnold Toynbee)
We must expect for a long time yet to see capitalists still striving to obtain the highest possible profits. But observe, that the passion for wealth is certainly in some senses new. It grew up very rapidly at the beginning of the present century; it was not so strong in the last century, when men were much more content to lead a quiet easy life of leisure. The change has really influenced the relations between men; but in the future it is quite possible that the scramble for wealth may grow less intense, and a change in the opposite direction take place. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
The greatest punishment for those who are not interested in politics is that they are governed by people who are. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
On the eve of the industrial revolution there were on every side signs of political change. But the French Revolution frightened statesmen, and political reform in England was delayed for nearly half a century. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
It is a great law of social development that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
Party historians go to the past for party purposes; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man- for that has to a certain extent been attained already- but how to secure his complete material independence. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
The right method in any particular case must be largely determined by the nature of the problem. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
The proper limits of Government interference are relative to the nature of each particular state and the stage of its civilisation. It is a matter of great importance at the present day for us to discover what these limits are in our own case, for administration bids fair to claim a large share of our attention in the future. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present, and go to that past to seek large views of what is of lasting importance to the human race. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
You must pursue facts for their own sake, but penetrated with a vivid sense of the problems of your own time. This is not a principle of perversion, but a principle of selection. You must have some principle of selection, and you could not have a better one than to pay special attention to the history of the social problems which are agitating the world now, for you may be sure that they are problems not of temporary but of lasting importance. (Arnold Toynbee)
The destruction of the old bonds between employers and workmen was not peculiar to manufactures; it came to pass in agriculture also. An agrarian as well as an industrial revolution had taken place. Scientific methods of cultivation had been substituted for unscientific; vast enclosures had been made; traces of the old three-field system of apportioning the land were fast disappearing; small farms were giving way to large. A new race of farmers, corresponding to the new race of manufacturers, had sprung into existence, who, enriched by the high prices which prevailed during the great war, changed their habits of life. The labourer ceased to be a member of the farmer's household, and, to use Cobbett's words, was thrust out of the farm-house into a hovel. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
Economists, firstly, regard only one part of man's nature, and treat him simply as a money-making animal; secondly, they disregard the influence of custom, and only take account of competition. Certain laws are laid down under these assumptions; as, for instance, that the rate of wages always tends to an equality, the permanent difference obtaining in various employments being only sufficient to balance the favourable or unfavourable circumstances attending each of them - a law which is only true after a certain stage of civilisation and in so far as the acquisition of wealth is the sole object of men. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
The Comtists are right when they say that men's moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years. Still I am obliged to believe that such a moral revolution as the Comtists hope for is not possible within a reasonable space of time. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
In the middle of the last century there was comparatively little movement of workmen from place to place; but Adam Smith's fierce attack on the law of settlement shows that migration was on the increase. The world was, in fact, on the eve of an industrial revolution; and it is interesting to remember that the two men who did most to bring it about, Adam Smith and James Watt, met, as I have mentioned, in Glasgow, when one was dreaming of the book, and the other of the invention, which were to introduce a new industrial age. View quote
Arnold Toynbee
When a society moves from allocating resources by custom and tradition to allocating resources by markets, they may be said to have undergone an industrial revolution. View quote
Arnold Toynbee