“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.
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“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
“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“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“The most obvious way of reconciling oneself to death is to make sure of enjoying life before death snatches it from us.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary sourceMore quotes by Arnold J. Toynbee →
“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“Perhaps wars weren’t won any more. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years’ War.”
— Ernest Hemingway 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“I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source