Herbert Read – 18 Quotes

18 Quotes by Herbert Read

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

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read

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

– Herbert Read

The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read

The worth of a civilization or a culture is not valued in the terms of its material wealth or military power, but by the quality and achievements of its representative individuals – its philosophers, its poets and its artists.

– Herbert Read

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

– Herbert Read

It is already clear, after twenty years of socialism in Russia, that if you do not provide your society with a new religion, it will gradually revert to the old one.

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read

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

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read

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

– Herbert Read

The farther a society progresses, the more clearly the individual becomes the antithesis of the group.

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read

These groups within a society can he distinguished according as to whether, like an army or an orchestra, they function as a single body or whether they are united merely to defend their common interests and otherwise function as separate individuals.

– Herbert Read

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

– Herbert Read

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.

– Herbert Read