“They rushed into it with their eyes open because they could not resist the bait.”
Arnold J. Toynbee
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (Primary source)
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contact of Civilisations is a detailed, largely firsthand account of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 and its wider political context.
More about “The Western Question in Greece and Turkey” →
“The Greek and Turkish pawns carried on the game of the French and English players. This pawnplaying, however, has not been so odiously cold and disingenuous as an analysis makes it appear. The trap in which the victims have been caught in order to be exploited was not cunningly hidden. They rushed into it with their eyes open because they could not resist the bait.”
Arnold J. Toynbee
“Technology is, of course, only a long Greek name for a bag of tools; and we have to ask ourselves: What are the tools that count in this competition in the use of tools as means to power?”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“History, in the objective meaning of the word, is the process of change; in the subjective meaning, it is the study of how and why one situation changes into another.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“The statesmen miscalculated again. Their fellow-countrymen had the means to carry out their policy but not the will; their pawns had the will without the means.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“The fact that I am neither a Greek nor a Turk perhaps creates little presumption of my being fair-minded, for Western partisans of non-Western peoples are often more fanatical than their favourites.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary sourceMore quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee →
“Beauty is the quality which makes to endure.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Haste makes waste.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Diligence overcomes difficulties, sloth makes them.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“The statesmen miscalculated again. Their fellow-countrymen had the means to carry out their policy but not the will; their pawns had the will without the means.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source