Quote #25

There is a kind of intellectual provincialism in the dogma that 'life is just one damned thing after another.' Human affairs do not become intelligible until they are seen as a whole.

More from Arnold Joseph Toynbee

  1. The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.
  2. To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
  3. The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterised by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single …
  4. We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breedin…
  5. The immense cities lie basking on the beaches of the continent like whales that have taken to the land.
  6. We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist.…
  7. The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have be…
  8. When I had got my notes all written out I thought I'd polish it off in two summers, but it took me twenty-seven years.

All Arnold Joseph Toynbee quotes