Bertolt Brecht quotes:

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  • Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

  • Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

  • Boy Meets Girl, So What?

  • From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first.

  • Why be a man when you can be a success?

  • The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it.

  • Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.

  • What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?

  • What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover, only the clover isn't good enough.

  • What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?

  • People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.

  • What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

  • There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.

  • War is like love; it always finds a way.

  • Let nothing be called natural In an age of bloody confusion, Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanized humanity, lest all things Be held unalterable!

  • It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.

  • What they could do with 'round here is a good war. What else can you expect with peace running wild all over the place? You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization.

  • One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.

  • What a miserable thing life is: you're in clover; only the clover isn't good enough.

  • The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn when teachers themselves are taught to learn.

  • The war which is comingIs not the first one. There wereOther wars before it.When the last one came to an endThere were conquerors and conquered.Among the conquered the common peopleStarved. Among the conquerorsThe common people starved too.

  • Oh! Moon of Alabama We now must say good-bye We've lost our good old mama And must have whiskey Oh, you know why!

  • Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.

  • You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.

  • All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living."

  • Art and science work in quite different ways: agreed. But, bad as it may sound, I have to admit that I cannot get along as an artist without the use of one or two sciences. ... In my view, the great and complicated things that go on in the world cannot be adequately recognized by people who do not use every possible aid to understanding.

  • The storm that bends the birch trees Is held to be violent But how about the storm That bends the backs of the roadworkers?

  • The finest plans have always been spoiled by the littleness of them that should carry them out. Even emperors can't do it all by themselves.

  • Bei den Hochgestellten gilt das Reden vom Essen als niedrig. Das kommt: sie haben schon gegessen.

  • We attacked a foreign people and treated them like rebels. As you know, it's all right to treat barbarians barbarically. It's the desire to be barbaric that makes governments call their enemies barbarians.

  • Of all the works of man I like best Those which have been used. The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges The knives and forks whose wooden handles Have been worn away by many hands: such forms Seemed to me the noblest.

  • In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.

  • No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

  • Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.

  • I don't trust him. We're friends.

  • The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.

  • Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.

  • To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.

  • You can make a fresh start with your final breath.

  • Great sport begins at a point where it has ceased to be healthy.

  • The alienation effect in German epic theater is achieved not only through the actors, but also through music (chorus and song) andsets (transparencies, film strips, etc.). Its main purpose is to place the staged events in their historical context.

  • It is not enough to demand insight and informative images of reality from the theater. Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality. Our audience must experience not only the ways to free Prometheus, but be schooled in the very desire to free him. Theater must teach all the pleasures and joys of discovery, all the feelings of triumph associated with liberation.

  • Sometimes I have visions of myself driving through hell, selling sulphur and brimstone, or through heaven peddling refreshments to the roaming souls. If me and the children I've got left could find a place where there's no shooting, I wouldn't mind a few years of peace and quiet.

  • First the pork chops, then morality

  • The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom

  • Who built the seven towers of Thebes?The books are filled with the names of kings.Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?...In the evening when the Chinese wall was finishedWhere did the masons go?...

  • Sin is what is new, strong, surprising, strange. The theatre must take an interest in sin if the young are to be able to go there.

  • Such a lot is won when even a single man gets to his feet and says No

  • For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?

  • Whenever there are great virtues, it's a sure sign something's wrong.

  • Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

  • We're not responsible, he thought. This planet is a temporary affair. It's whizzing with all kinds of other ones, a whole range of planetary stuff, toward a star in the Milky Way. On that kind of a planet we're not responsible, he thought.

  • Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.

  • Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.

  • Schoenberg is too melodious for me, too sweet.

  • On thinking about Hell, I gather My brother Shelley found it was a place Much like the city of London. I Who live in Los Angeles and not in London Find, on thinking about Hell, that it must be Still more like Los Angeles.

  • Go make yourself a plan And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, For neither will come right.

  • For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.

  • Here today we huddle tight As the darkest heathens might The snow falls chilly on our skin The snow is forcing its way in. Hush, snow, come in with us to dwell: We were thrown out by Heaven as well.

  • A man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a three penny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll have him cold-bloodedly handed over to the police.

  • Unhappiness doesn't grow on the chest like leprosy. Poverty won't fall off the roof like a loose tile, no; poverty and unhappiness are man's doing.

  • When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

  • He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.

  • Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.

  • Science knows only one commandment - contribute to science.

  • The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom.

  • People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.

  • Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have good taste.

  • No one will improve your lot if you do not yourself.

  • Don't expect the theatre to satisfy the habits of its audience, but to change them.

  • The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.

  • Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the running to spread the truth among such persons.

  • There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones.

  • Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.

  • It is not enough to demand insight and informative images of reality from the theater. Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality.

  • Terrible is the temptation to be good.

  • He who fights, can lose. He who doesn't fight, has already lost.

  • Love is the wish to give, not to receive.

  • The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!" When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

  • One can describe the world of today to the people of today only if one describes it as capable of alteration.

  • Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

  • Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.

  • General, your tank is a powerful vehicle It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: It needs a driver. General, your bomber is powerful. It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant. But it has one defect: It needs a mechanic. General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.

  • We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.

  • All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.

  • Bank robbery is an initiative of amateurs. True professionals establish a bank.

  • Would it not be simpler If the Government Dissolved the people And elected another?

  • People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.

  • Everyone needs help from everyone.

  • Firebugs dragging their gasoline bottles Are approaching the Academy of Arts, with a grin. And so, instead of embracing them, Let us demand the freedom of the elbow To knock the bottles out of their filthy hands. Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat, Provided he loves peace, Is a greater lover of the arts Than any so-called art-lover Who loves the arts of war.

  • From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people ... it needs no other passport than fun.

  • What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors?

  • Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

  • I am a playwright. I show What I have seen. In the man markets I have seen how men are traded. That I show, I, the playwright.

  • A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

  • Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.

  • War is like love, it always finds a way.

  • I was called up in the war and sent to a hospital. I dressed wounds, applied iodine, gave enemas, did blood transfusions. If the doctor ordered: "Brecht, amputate a leg!", I would reply, "Certainly, Your Excellency!", and cut off the leg. If I was told, "Perform a trepanning!" I opened the man's skull and messed about with his brains. I saw how they patched fellows up, so as to cart them back to the Front as quickly as they could.

  • If you fight you might lose, if you don't you have already lost.

  • The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

  • Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.

  • To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.

  • Don't tell me peace has broken out.

  • General, your tank is a powerful vehicle it smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. but it has one defect: it needs a driver.

  • There must always be some who are brighter and some who are stupider, the latter make up for it by being better workers.

  • I'm in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.

  • People who understand everything get no stories.

  • First the grub, then the morals.

  • The rain Never falls upwards. When the wound Stops hurting What hurts is The scar.

  • Life is short and so is money.

  • For the villainy of the world is great, and a man has to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen out fom underneath him.

  • Recently my fingers have developed a prejudice against comparatives. They all follow this pattern: a squirrel is smaller than a tree; a bird is more musical than a tree. Each of us is the strongest one in his or her own skin. Characteristics should take off their hats to one another, instead of spitting in each other's faces.

  • Never believe on faith, see for yourself! What you yourself don't learn you don't know.

  • Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.

  • None will improve your lot If you yourself do not.

  • In the contradiction lies the hope.

  • Who does Not Know the Truth, is simply a Fool... Yet who Knows the Truth and Calls it a Lie, is a Criminal.

  • Poverty makes you wise but it's a curse.

  • Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.

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