The collection / 13 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

In History, stagnant waters, whether they be stagnant waters of custom or those of despotism, harbour no life; life is dependent on the ripples created by a few eccentric individuals. In homage to that life and vitality, the community has to brave certain perils and must countenance a measure of heresy. One must live dangerously if one wants to live at all.

Herbert Read / quote

02Undated

You cannot impose a culture from the top--it must come from under. It grows out of the soil, out of the people, out of their daily life and work. It is a spontaneous expression of their joy of life, of their joy in work, and if this does not exist, the culture will not exist. Joy is a spiritual quality, an impalpable quality: that too cannot be forced. It must be an inevitable state of mind, born of the elementary processes of life, a by-product of natural human growth.

Herbert Read / quote

03Undated

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

Herbert Read / quote

04Undated

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 / quote

05Undated

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 / quote

06Undated

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

Herbert Read / quote

07Undated

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 / quote

08Undated

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

Herbert Read / quote

09Undated

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 / quote

10Undated

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 / quote

11Undated

Art is pattern informed by sensibility.

Herbert Read / quote

12Undated

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

Herbert Read / quote

13Undated

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 / quote