Quotes by
Bertolt Brecht |
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, 1898-1956 , German writer
German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theater departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes.During the Nazi period, Bertolt Brecht lived in exile, first in Scandinavia, and during WW II in the US, where he was surveilled by the FBI. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theater company Berliner Ensemble.
| 55 quotes | 7,564 visits |
Quotations
| • | If you fight you might lose; if you don’t, you have already lost. 17 |
| • | — Pity the country that breeds no hero. — No, pity the country that needs heroes. 14 |
| • | Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them. 11 |
| • | Little changes are the enemies of great changes. 10 |
| • | Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it. 8 |
| • | All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living. 7 |
| • | Poverty makes you wise, but it’s a curse. 7 |
| • | Grub first, then ethics. 6 |
| • | Writers can’t write as fast as governments make wars; because to write demands thinking. 6 |
| • | What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank? 6 |
| • | I don’t like where I’m going and I don’t like where I’ve been. Why am I in a hurry? 5 |
| • | It’s all right to hesitate if you then go ahead. 5 |
| • | For art to be unpolitical means only to ally itself with the ruling group. 4 |
| • | People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart. |
| • | Let nothing be called natural in an age of bloody confusion. |
| • | The main objective is to learn to think crudely. Crude thinking is the great one’s thinking. |
| • | 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. |
| • | Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably. |
| • | The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot. |
| • | Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. |
| • | Always the victor writes the history of the vanquished. He who beats distorts the faces of the beaten. The weaker depart from this world and the lies remain. |
| • | 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. |
| • | Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life. |
| • | Science knows only one commandment: contribute to science. |
| • | The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error. |
| • | War is like love, it always finds a way. |
| • | Their peace and their war are like wind and storm. War grows from their peace. |
| • | The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news. |
| • | Don’t expect the theater to satisfy the habits of its audience, but to change them. |
| • | Who does Not Know the Truth, is simply a Fool... Yet who Knows the Truth and Calls it a Lie, is a Criminal. |
| • | 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. |
| • | If you don't have fun, you don't have a show. |
| • | In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times. |
| • | Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change. |
| • | You have to attack once the truth is too weak to defend itself. |
| • | 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. |
| • | No one can be good for long, if goodness is not in demand. |
| • | A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore. |
| • | Sin is what is new, strong, surprising, strange. The theater must take an interest in sin, if the young are to be willing to go there. |
| • | People who understand everything get no stories. |
| • | Sometimes it’s more important to be human, than to have good taste. |
| • | Only bad generals need heroes. |
| • | Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon. |
| • | 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. |
| • | 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. |
| • | Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels. |
| • | What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone? |
| • | Why be a man when you can be a success? |
| • | What keeps a man alive? He feeds on others. |
| • | In any new idea, we have to look for where it comes from and where it goes. Only then can we know if it is good or not. |
| • | Defeats and victories of people at the top are not always defeats and victories for people at the bottom. |
| • | The great city of Carthage started three wars. After the first, it was still strong. After the second, it was still habitable. After the third, it was impossible to locate it. |
Quotes in Verse
| • | Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear, And he shows them pearly white Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear And he keeps it out of sight. 6 |
| • | Events cast long shadows before. One such event would be a war. But how are shadows to be seen When total darkness fills the screen? 5 |
