Quotes By Herbert Read

Creeds and castes, and all forms of intellectual and emotional grouping, belong to the past.

The point I am making is that in the more primitive forms of society the individual is merely a unit; in more developed forms of society he is an independent personality.

I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.

The principle of equity first came into evidence in Roman jurisprudence and was derived by analogy from the physical meaning of the word.

The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair.

Art is pattern informed by sensibility.

My own early experiences in war led me to suspect the value of discipline, even in that sphere where it is so often regarded as the first essential for success.

What I do deny is that you can build any enduring society without some such mystical ethos.

The most general law in nature is equity-the principle of balance and symmetry which guides the growth of forms along the lines of the greatest structural efficiency.

Freud has shown one thing very clearly: that we only forget our infancy by burying it in the unconscious; and that the problems of this difficult period find their solution under a disguised form in adult life.

But the further step, by means of which a civilization is given its quality or culture, is only attained by a process of cellular division, in the course of which the individual is differentiated, made distinct from and independent of the parent group.

A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them.

It does not seem that the contradiction which exists between the aristocratic function of art and the democratic structure of modern society can ever be resolved.

We may be sure that out of the ruins of our capitalist civilization a new religion will emerge, just as Christianity emerged from the ruins of the Roman civilization.

To realize that new world we must prefer the values of freedom and equality above all other values - above personal wealth, technical power and nationalism.

There are a few people, but a diminishing number, who still believe that Marxism, as an economic system, off era a coherent alternative to capitalism, and socialism has, indeed, triumphed in one country.

In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.

Man is everywhere still in chains.

I can imagine no society which does not embody some method of arbitration.

I am not going to claim that modern anarchism has any direct relation to Roman jurisprudence; but I do claim that it has its basis in the laws of nature rather than in the state of nature.

If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical.

That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man's spiritual vision.

The modern work of art, as I have said, is a symbol.

The sense of historical continuity, and a feeling for philosophical rectitude cannot, however, be compromised.

Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society.

The assumption is that the right kind of society is an organic being not merely analogous to an organic being, but actually a living structure with appetites and digestions, instincts and passions, intelligence and reason.

Progress is measured by richness and intensity of experience - by a wider and deeper apprehension of the significance and scope of human existence.

You might think that it would he the natural desire of every man to develop as an independent personality, but this does not seem to be true.

Nobody seriously believes in the social philosophies of the immediate past.

I know of no better name than Anarchism.