Make a New Friend

Today I met a new friend, and I think you'd like him as well. We can't talk to him because he died in 1975, but he left us some interesting thoughts. Arnold Toynbee (1889 - 1975) was an English historian and philosopher. Here are some quotes I found at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/:

-- It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.

-- America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair. ;)

-- Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.

-- Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.

Historians have a valuable perspective on things precisely because they get out of the current context. Have a magnificent Monday!