What I do deny is that you can build any enduring society without some such mystical ethos.
Herbert Read

A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them.
Herbert Read

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.
Herbert Read

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.
Herbert Read

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

The farther a society progresses, the more clearly the individual becomes the antithesis of the group.
Herbert Read

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