The Quotation Index

Category History

Featured Quote in History

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 · 1948

Subcategories

Prehistory (0) Ancient history (2) Medieval history (2) Early modern history (0) Modern history (5) Contemporary history (0)

History Quotes

“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, 1948 · Primary source

“Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · Civilization on Trial, 1948 · Primary source

“Nothing fails like success.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · 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 · Change and Habit, 1966 · Primary source

“Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern Western historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we diagnose each case, in extremis or post mortem, we invariably find that the cause of death has been either War or Class or some, combination of the two.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · Civilization on Trial, 1948 · Primary source

“The contact of civilisations has always been, and will always continue to be, a ruling factor in human progress and failure.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, 1922 · Primary source

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · No reliable source

“More often geographical expansion is a concomitant of real decline and coincides with a ‘time of troubles’ or a universal state—both of them stages of decline and disintegration. The reason is not far to seek. Times of trouble produce militarism, which is a perversion of the human spirit into channels of mutual destruction, and the most successful militarist becomes, as a rule, the founder of a universal state. Geographical expansion is a by-product of this militarism, in interludes when the mighty men of valour turn aside from their assaults upon their rivals within their own society to deliver assaults upon neighbouring societies.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · Primary source

“Rome seemed as powerful and stable as ever. But below the surface the foundations were cracking, and through the fissures new ideas and new institutions were thrusting themselves. The cities are everywhere in decline; trade, industry, and agriculture bend under the weight of taxation. Communications are less safe, and some provinces are infested with marauders, peasants who can no longer earn a living on the land.”