A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them. – Herbert Read
I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority. – 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
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
The only sin is ugliness, and if we believed this with all our being, all other activities of the human spirit could be left to take care of themselves. – Herbert Read
What I do deny is that you can build any enduring society without some such mystical ethos. – 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
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
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. – 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
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
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
The principle of equity first came into evidence in Roman jurisprudence and was derived by analogy from the physical meaning of the word. – 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. – Herbert Read
In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence. – Herbert Read
The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair. – Herbert Read
It was Nietzsche who first made us conscious of the significance of the individual as a term in the evolutionary process-in that part of the evolutionary process which has still to take place. – Herbert Read
If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical. – Herbert Read
