“Now civilizations, I believe, come to birth and proceed to grow by successfully responding to successive challenges. They break down and go to pieces if and when a challenge confronts them which they fail to meet.”
Arnold J. Toynbee
Civilization on Trial (Primary source)
Civilization on Trial is a collection of thirteen essays, written over roughly two decades, that Toynbee binds together with a common outlook on the meaning of history. Though several pieces predate it, the book is preoccupied with the post-war moment, examining the moral and spiritual challenges facing humanity and arguing that Western civilization stands at a critical juncture.
More about “Civilization on Trial” →
“Now civilizations, I believe, come to birth and proceed to grow by successfully responding to successive challenges. They break down and go to pieces if and when a challenge confronts them which they fail to meet. Not unnaturally, there are challenges that present themselves in the histories of more than one civilization. And the peculiar interest of Graeco-Roman history for us lies in the fact that the Greek civilization broke down in the fifth century b.c. through failing to find a successful response to the very challenge which is confronting our own Western civilization in our own lifetime.”
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“Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour.”
— 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“A life which does not go into action is a failure.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary sourceMore quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee →
“Perhaps wars weren’t won any more. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years’ War.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out.”
— Søren Kierkegaard 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 source“The Internet is a tidal wave. It changes the rules. It is an incredible opportunity as well as incredible challenge.”
— Bill Gates Primary source