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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

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Herbert Read
Age: 74 †
Born: 1893
Born: November 4
Died: 1968
Died: June 12
Anarchist
Art Historian
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Muscoates
North Yorkshire
Sir Herbert Edward Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Read
Herbert Edward Read
Humans
Activities
Take
Believed
Sin
Activity
Left
Spirit
Care
Human
Ugliness

More quotes by Herbert Read

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The principle of equity first came into evidence in Roman jurisprudence and was derived by analogy from the physical meaning of the word.
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Works of art must persist as objects of contemplation.
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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.
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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.
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If we persist in our restless desire to know everything about the universe and ourselves, then we must not be afraid of what the artist brings back from his voyage of discovery.
Herbert Read
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The fundamental purpose of the artist is the same as that of a scientist: to state a fact.
Herbert Read
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Perhaps it is this theory of all work and no play that has made the Marxist such a very dull boy.
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Great changes in the destiny of mankind can be effected only in the minds of little children.
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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
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The great modern heresy in poetry is to confuse the use we make of words in a poem with modalities of speech...For true poetry is never speech but always a song.
Herbert Read
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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.
Herbert Read
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In general, modern art... has been inspired by a natural desire to chart the uncharted.
Herbert Read
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Freud has shown one thing very clearly: that we only forget our infancy by burying it in the unconscious and that the problems of this difficult period find their solution under a disguised form in adult life.
Herbert Read
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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.
Herbert Read
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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
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But all categories of art, idealistic or realistic, surrealistic or constructivist (a new form of idealism) must satisfy a simple test (or they are in no sense works of art): they must persist as objects of contemplation.
Herbert Read
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I know of no better name than Anarchism.
Herbert Read
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Nobody seriously believes in the social philosophies of the immediate past.
Herbert Read
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Intellect begins with the observation of nature, proceeds to memorize and classify the facts thus observed, and by logical deduction builds up that edifice of knowledge properly called scienceĀ… But admittedly we also know by feeling, and we can combine the two faculties, and present knowledge in the guise of art.
Herbert Read
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Love works miracles in stillness.
Herbert Read