J. C. Read Quotes

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

In general, modern art... has been inspired by a natural desire to chart the uncharted.

Works of art must persist as objects of contemplation.

The First Splendid Truth: To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.

If I could start over today, I would choose literature again. If the answers exist in the world or in the universe, I still think that's where we're going to find them.

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.

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

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.

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

God does not seem impressed by size or power or wealth. Faith is what he wants, and the heroes who emerge are heroes of faith, not strength or wealth.

The heavens are full of floating mysteries.

I hate the sin, but I love the sinner.

The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace - and that is all.

The advancement of freedom is not a matter of who wields political power over creative actions; rather, it depends upon the disassembling of such power.

Creeds and castes, and all forms of intellectual and emotional grouping, belong to the past.

In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.

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.

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.

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.

If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical.

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.

The point I am making is that in the more primitive forms of society the individual is merely a unit; in more developed forms of society he is an independent personality.

If modern art has produced symbols that are unfamiliar, that was only to be expected.

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.

Man is everywhere still in chains.

The fundamental purpose of the artist is the same as that of a scientist: to state a fact.

I know of no better name than Anarchism.

What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa.

The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying.

We may be sure that out of the ruins of our capitalist civilization a new religion will emerge, just as Christianity emerged from the ruins of the Roman civilization.

Sins become more subtle as you grow older: you commit sins of despair rather than of lust.

We persist and linger longer than we think, leaving traces of ourselves wherever we go. If you take that away, then we all simply vanish.

What manner of mind considers this holy estate [pregnancy] which women are privileged by the Almighty to attain as a slur upon the social conscience?

Unemployed and dependent - is not as parasite.

The depths modern art has been exploring are mysterious depths, full of strange fish.

It may be that it is only by the grace of granitization that we have continents to live on.

I suppose if I had to give a one-word answer to the question of why I read, that word would be pleasure. The kind of pleasure you can get from reading is like no other in the world.

... always keep in mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion.

Pleasure represents a great good but also a grave danger.

The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.

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

Some people make tunes, but it is lines that run like moving messages through my head. Whatever else I am saying and doing often has no bearing on this inner, verbal life.

There is no greater dishonesty than man effecting his own private gains at the expense of others.

All in their lifetime carve their own soul's statue.

True, the free market ignores the poor precisely as it does not recognize the wealthy - it is 'no respecter of persons'

Governments resort to inflation with popular support because the people apparently are naïve enough to believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too.

No one has more than scratched the surface when it comes to understanding and explaining the miracle of the market.

The solution to this problem [welfare-statism] must take a positive form: the restoration of a faith in what free men can accomplish.

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.