Herbert Read Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“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.”

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

“Man is everywhere still in chains.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”