WIST

God has created Man to be God’s free partner in the work of creation.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
“Man Owes His Freedom to God,” Collier’s (30 Mar 1956)

Do not let yourselves be discouraged or embittered by the smallness of the success you are likely to achieve in trying to make life better. You certainly would not be able, in a single generation, to create an earthly paradise. Who could expect that? But, if you make life ever so little better, you will have done splendidly, and your lives will have been worthwhile.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
(Attributed)

Familiarity breeds acquiescence as well as contempt.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
A Study of History, 3.370 (1934)

One genetic evil of an institution of any kind is that people who have identified themselves with it are prone to make an idol of it.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
An Historian’s Approach to Religion, 2d ed., ch. 19 (1956; 1979)

The aim of all education is, or should be, to teach people to educate themselves.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
Surviving the Future, ch. 5 (1971)

Individual enlightenment is the indispensable means of social reform.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose, ch. 12 (1976)

The best safeguard against fascism is to establish social justice to the maximum possible extent.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose, ch. 8 (1976)

The things that make good headlines attract our attention because they are on the surface of the stream of life, and they distract our attention from the slower, impalpable, imponderable movements that work below the surface and penetrate to the depths.  But, of course, it is really these deeper, slower movements that, in the end, make history, and it is they that stand our huge in retrospect, when the the sensational passing events have dwindled, in perspective, to their true proportions.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
Conversation with his son Philip Toynbee, Comparing Notes: A Dialogue Across a Generation (1963)

The human race’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenseless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenseless against ourselves.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
Speech, World Food Congress, Washington, DC (5 Jun 1963)