Arnold Toynbee

To the capitalists we appeal to use their wealth, as many of their order already do, as a great national trust, and not for selfish purposes alone.

To a reluctant admission of the necessity for State action, we join a burning belief in duty, and a deep spiritual ideal of life.

Even if the chance should arise of removing a great social evil, nothing must be done to weaken those habits of individual self-reliance and voluntary association which have built up the greatness of the English people.

The Radical creed, as I understand it, is this: We have not abandoned our old belief in liberty, justice, and Self-help, but we say that under certain conditions the people cannot help themselves, and that then they should be helped by the …

On the eve of the industrial revolution there were on every side signs of political change. But the French Revolution frightened statesmen, and political reform in England was delayed for nearly half a century.

We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.

The Comtists are right when they say that men's moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years. Still I am obliged to believe that such a moral revolution as the …

It is a great law of social development that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance.

Party historians go to the past for party purposes; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present.

It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present, and go to that past to seek large views of what is of lasting importance to the human race.

The proper limits of Government interference are relative to the nature of each particular state and the stage of its civilisation. It is a matter of great importance at the present day for us to discover what these limits are in our own …

The right method in any particular case must be largely determined by the nature of the problem.