“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
Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time (Primary source)
Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time examines what Toynbee saw as the defining political and social crisis of the modern era: the dangerous mismatch between the accelerating pace of historical change and humanity’s deep-seated habits, particularly the habit of organizing into rival sovereign states.
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“It will be seen that Man’s social and cultural heritage is the field of history. 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. History is the ’living garment’ that the Time-Spirit is always weaving for mankind on the ’humming loom of Time’. At the social and cultural level of human life, time spells change, whether deliberate or involuntary.”
Arnold J. Toynbee
“They rushed into it with their eyes open because they could not resist the bait.”
— 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“A cultivated class, for example, finds most difficulty in getting on with another which has acquired part—but only part—of its culture and customs.”
— 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.”
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“For what are we born if not to aid one another?”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Words may show a man’s wit, but actions his meaning.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“I have never seen the philosopher’s stone that turns lead into gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a man’s gold into lead.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“But I am greedy for life. I do too much of everything all the time. Suddenly one day my heart will fail. The Iron Crab will get me as it got my father. But I am not afraid of The Crab. At least I shall have died from an honourable disease. Perhaps they will put on my tombstone. ‘This Man Died from Living Too Much’.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source