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The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterised by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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Arnold J. Toynbee
Age: 85 †
Born: 1889
Born: April 14
Died: 1975
Died: January 1
Diplomat
Historian
University Teacher
London
England
Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Arnold Toynbee
Political
Single
Constituent
Power
Stage
Unification
Whole
Liberty
Constituents
Politics
Civilisation
Every
Greater
Oppression
Lasts
Forced
Last
Independence
Freedom
Parts
Characterised

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There is no such thing as gratitude in international politics.
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Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
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The immense cities lie basking on the beaches of the continent like whales that have taken to the land.
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Man's true end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.
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The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.
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Adversity in the things of this world opens the door for spiritual salvation.
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The penalty of affluence is that it cuts one off from the common lot, common experience, and common fellowship. In a sense it outlaws one automatically from one's birthright of membership in the great human family.
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The West has never been all of the world that matters. The West has not been the only actor on the stage of modern history even at the peak of the West's power (and this peak has perhaps now already been passed)... It has not been the West that has been hit by the world it has been the world that has been hit - and hit hard - by the West.
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The twentieth century will be chiefly remembered by future generations not as an era of political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective.
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Our western science is a child of moral virtues and it must now become the father of further moral virtues if its extraordinary material triumphs in our time are not to bring human history to an abrupt, unpleasant and discreditable end.
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The absolute value of love makes life worth while, and so makes Man's strange and difficult situation acceptable. Love cannot save life from death but it can fulfill life's purpose.
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History is a vision of God's creation on the move.
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Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.
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We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.
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I believe that a religious conversion is the only way to stimulate the peoples of the industrialized nations to be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of esho funi (the oneness of self and environment). ... I wish the entire world would accept as an item of religious faith the concept of esho funi and its moral obligations.
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Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm.
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Angkor is perhaps the greatest of Man's essays in rectangular architecture that has yet been brought to life.
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