Christmas Every Day

“Some historians hold that history is just one damned thing after another.” 

— Arnold Toynbee

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.”

— Edward Gibbon

It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events …. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.

— Winston Churchill

Militarism has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations. The single art of war makes progress at the expense of all the arts of peace.

— Arnold Toynbee

The warm desires, the long expectations of youth, are founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world: they are generally damped by time and experience, by disappointment or possession; and after the middle season the crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain: while the few who have climbed the summit aspire to descend or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts, who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writings.

— Edward Gibbon

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

— Edward Gibbon

“Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.”

— Arnold Toynbee

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”.

— Karl Marx

Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

— Herodotus

“A city that outdistances man’s walking powers is a trap for man.” 

— Arnold Toynbee

“You should never ask a historian to predict the future—we have enough trouble predicting the past.”

A.J.P. Taylor