Just aim for the stars

“History is a vision of God's creation on the move.” – Arnold J. Toynbee

Born on this date in 1889, British historian, philosopher, and research professor of International History Arnold J. Toynbee also was the author of numerous books, including the immensely popular 12-volume A Study of History (which he wrote from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s).

Combined with his prodigious output of papers, articles, speeches and presentations, as well as other numerous books translated into many languages, Toynbee was probably the most widely read and discussed historical scholar from the mid-1940s until his death in 1975.

He was honored posthumously in 1987 with the creation of the Toynbee Prize, awarded internationally each year.  The [Toynbee Prize] Foundation was chartered “to contribute to the development of the social sciences, as defined from a broad historical view of human society and of human and social problems.”                   

                                    Noted for his “aim for the stars” approach to achieving goals, he once noted, “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.”

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