Herbert Read quotes

Herbert Read was a British art historian, poet, and champion of modern art and anarchism. His writings greatly influenced twentieth-century art criticism and theory. He became known for his advocacy of creativity, education, and social change. Here are 93 of his quotes:

A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them. (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. View quote
Herbert Read
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. View quote
Herbert Read
What I do deny is that you can build any enduring society without some such mystical ethos. View quote
Herbert Read
I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority. View quote
Herbert Read
The work of art ... is an instrument for tilling the human psyche, that it may continue to yield a harvest of vital beauty. View quote
Herbert Read
It is not my purpose as a poet to condemn war (or to be exact, modern warfare). I only wish to present the universal aspects of a particular event. View quote
Herbert Read
The sensitive artist knows that a bitter wind is blowing. View quote
Herbert Read
Art is pattern informed by sensibility. View quote
Herbert Read
Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society. View quote
Herbert Read
The modern work of art, as I have said, is a symbol. (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. View quote
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. View quote
Herbert Read
Morality, as has often been pointed out, is antecedent to religion-it even exists in a rudimentary form among animals. View quote
Herbert Read
These are the sensations and feelings that are gradually blunted by education, staled by custom, rejected in favor of social conformity. View quote
Herbert Read
Man is everywhere still in chains. View quote
Herbert Read
The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough. View quote
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. View quote
Herbert Read
I have not the slightest doubt that this form of individuation represents a higher stage in the evolution of mankind. View quote
Herbert Read
The farther a society progresses, the more clearly the individual becomes the antithesis of the group. View quote
Herbert Read
Poetry is creative expression; Prose is constructive expression... by creative I mean original. In Poetry the words are born or reborn in the act of thinking... There is no time interval between the words and the thought when a real poet writes, both of them happen together, and both the thought and the word are Poetry. (Herbert Read)
Nobody seriously believes in the social philosophies of the immediate past. View quote
Herbert Read
Once we become conscious of a feeling and attempt to make a corresponding form, we are engaged in an activity which, far from being sincere, is prepared (as any artist if he is sincere will tell you) to moderate feelings to fit the form. The artist's feeling for form is stronger than a formless feeling. View quote
Herbert Read
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. View quote
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. View quote
Herbert Read