Arnold J. Toynbee Quotes

When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then - and not until then - will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher become a real and blessed truth.

We must not enable anyone to impose his personal view regarding religion on others by force, oppression, or pressure.

My goal for the Arab world is to change the status quo, which is horrible politically, religiously, economically, in every way.

The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. Test Oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils.

I say to you Baptists, "Go on being good Baptists, thinking that you are more right than anybody else." Unless you think it, I have no use for you at all. The Church of England does precisely the same itself.

The role of the Church of England … has always been to hold in trust for the nation the Christian faith, and values which in the past created the nation and to try to […] act as an interpreter and bridge between many different people looking for a faith and spirituality and not doing that exclusively. We do it these days in partnership with other churches, but the Church of England has always had a particular responsibility for this role.

Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men

If the Church of England had been the established and general religion and all the northern colonies as it has been among us here and uninterrupted tranquility had prevailed throughout the continent, it is clear to me that slavery and subjection might and would have been gradually insulated among us. Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence and ecclesiastical establishments tend to grate ignorance and corruption all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects

Christians ought not to persecute one another, and that only for small differences in opinion, when what is right or wrong for the most part remains a doubt and uncertain; whil'st the evils are only certain that such disputes produce.

The Moors tolerated Christendom when they were ascendant, but the Christian Inquisition harbored no reciprocal emotion.

… science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization.

I shall be very careful to preserve and maintain the Act of Toleration, and to set the minds of all my people at quiet; my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests and religion of the Church of England, and will incline me to countenance those who have the truest zeal to support it.

Where religion is trivialized, one is unlikely to find persecution.

Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.

Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.

We can't equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.

Whatever America's founders believed about Christianity - and they believed a wide range of things - they clearly rejected the idea of an established church.

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.

The forefathers of the United States were children of religious bigotry and persecution, and, as a result, fled Britain to create a new approach to life and government. They valued intellect and education. In fact, they outlined the principles of the United States' democracy to establish intellectual freedom from the Church.

Christianity is the enemy of liberty and civilization.

Growing up in Britain as a rather loose Jew, the two things that didn't belong together were freedom and religious intensity. In America, they do. The Founding Fathers made a bet that if you didn't force everyone to profess religion in their own particular way, you could protect intellectual freedom, and religion would flourish.

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.

Modernity, democracy, and change have enabled more and more Muslim women activists, and Muslim democrats all over the world, to realize they can work within the Islamic framework to find liberation within Islam…. We feel strongly that we have a right to reclaim our religion, to redefine it, and to make sure Islam is codified and implemented in ways that take into consideration the realities of women’s lives today.

Christianity is the enemy of liberty and of civilization. It has kept mankind in chains.

The decision on the Buddhas was made according to Islamic rules. It was not done to insult any particular religion, but once an Islamic order is made, it cannot be changed.