Bertolt Brecht
playwright, lyricist, screenwriter, theatrical director, poet, librettist, literary critic, writer, film director, director
Read on Wikipedia1898 – 1956
All Quotes by Bertolt Brecht
“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 right at their heels.”
“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.”
“There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.”
“Corpses sour you. They are bad for objectivity.”
“People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.”
“A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.”
“Let nothing be called natural Be held unalterable!”
“The main objective is to learn to think crudely. Crude thinking is the great one’s thinking.”
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”
“Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”
“The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn when teachers themselves are taught to learn.”
“Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not For it is a kind of silence about injustice!”
“To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.”
“Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.”
“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.”
“Natürlich muss die Wahrheit im Kampf mit der Unwahrheit geschrieben werden und sie darf nicht etwas Allgemeines, Hohes, Vieldeutiges sein. Von dieser allgemeinen, hohen, vieldeutigen Art ist ja gerade die Unwahrheit. Wenn von einem gesagt wird, er hat die Wahrheit gesagt, so haben zunächst einige oder viele oder einer etwas anderes gesagt, eine Lüge oder etwas Allgemeines, aber er hat die Wahrheit gesagt, etwas Praktisches, Tatsächliches, Unleugbares, das, um was es sich handelte.”
“The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.”
“Some party hack decreed that the people And elected another?”
“Firebugs dragging their gasoline bottles Who loves the arts of war.”
“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.)”
“First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics.”
“And the shark he has his teeth and No one knows where it may be.”
“You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!”
“For once you must try not to shirk the facts: Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.”
“The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it.”
“For the task assigned them With a clever lie.”
“What is the burgling of a bank to the founding of a bank?”
“Mr. Wurlitzer, I am now in a position to receive your organ.”
“Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.”
“You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.”
“Those who are weak don't fight.They are the indispensable ones.”
“The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn When teachers themselves are taught to learn.”
“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.”
“Andrea: Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero. Galileo: No, Andrea: Unhappy is the land that needs a hero. [Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat.]”
“Science has only one commandment: contribution.”
“The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.”
“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.”
“War is like love, it always finds a way.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”
“If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.”
“Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.”
“Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.”
“And when she was finished they laid her in earthHow much pain it took to make her as light as that!”
“Worship with fulness of heart the weak memory of heaven!Nobody knows you're still living.”
“Oh the harsh snarl of guitar strings roaring!Long green slimy nights: we were like stoats.”
“Marie Farrar: month of birth, AprilFor all that lives needs help from all the rest.”
“Here today we huddle tightWe were thrown out by Heaven as well.”
“Come in, dear wind, and be our guestYou too have neither home nor rest.”
“The rainThe scar.”
“Spring is noticed, if at allBy people sitting in railway trains.”
“On golden chairsAnd for comforting all those whom you had wounded.”
“All the gang of those who rule usSo they can remain on top.”
“Of all the works of man I like bestSeemed to me the noblest.”
“With drooping shouldersStony ground that has been repeatedly ploughed-up to no purpose.”
“People will observe you to seeCleverer than he himself is.”
“Play your part creatively in all the strugglesJustice into a passion.”
“Events cast long shadows before.When total darkness fills the screen?”
“No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.”
“The plum tree in the yard's so smallIt gets too little sun.”
“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.”
“The headlong stream is termed violentTermed violent by no one.”
“Little changes are the enemies of great changes.”
“Their peace and their warWar grows from their peace.”
“General, man is very useful. He can think.”
“The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.”
“This is the year which people will talk aboutThe sky hurls down no rain, only iron.”
“Every day, to earn my daily bread I take up my place among the sellers.”
“High above the lake a bomber flies.Wide open for food.”
“And I always thought: the very simplest wordsSurely you see that.”
“Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.”
“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.”
“What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover, only the clover isn't good enough.”
“Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.”