"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."

"Revolt, it will be said, implies violence; but this is an outmoded, an incompetent conception of revolt. The most effective form of revolt in this violent world we live in is non-violence."

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

"The modern work of art, as I have said, is a symbol."

"That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man's spiritual vision."

"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."

"Art is pattern informed by sensibility."

"I know of no better name than Anarchism."

"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."

-quotes by Sir Herbert Edward Read