Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MCwas an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philospher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
coherence degrees evolution
In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.
earliest group nomadic point primitive records species
The earliest records of our species point to group organizations - the primitive horde, nomadic tribes, settlements, communities, cities, nations.
military artist civilization
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.
philosophy believe past
Nobody seriously believes in the social philosophies of the immediate past.
progress differentiation degrees
Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society.
war discipline firsts
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.
attitude political despair
The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair.
miracle stillness
Love works miracles in stillness.
happiness may slave
The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.
umpires arbitration doe
I can imagine no society which does not embody some method of arbitration.
believe past order
In order to create it is necessary to destroy; and the agent of destruction in society is the poet. I believe that the poet is necessarily an anarchist, and that he must oppose all organized conceptions of the State, not only those which we inherit from the past, but equally those which are imposed on people in the name of the future.
mean independent civilization
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.
past emotional intellectual
Creeds and castes, and all forms of intellectual and emotional grouping, belong to the past.
names anarchism knows
I know of no better name than Anarchism.