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There is no beauty in anything rational. Beauty emerges from the unknown, often from the inane, generally irrational, as unforseen combinations.

— Herbert Read Phases in English Poetry (1928)

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Beauty

More quotes by Herbert Read

All revolutions in modern times, Camus points out, have led to a reinforcement of the power of the State.

Foreword (1956)

These are the sensations and feelings that are gradually blunted by education, staled by custom, rejected in favor of social conformity.

Collected Poems (1966)

The work of art … is an instrument for tilling the human psyche, that it may continue to yield a harvest of vital beauty.

Collected Poems (1966)

Restraint is not the contrary of revolt.

Foreword (1956)

True poetry is never speech but always a song.

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Herbert Read (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.