Top 203 Quotes & Sayings by Bertolt Brecht - Page 2

The war which is coming Is not the first one. There were Other wars before it. When the last one came to an end There were conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered the common people Starved. Among the conquerors The common people starved too.

If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.

He who speaks of enemies , himself is the enemy.

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

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.

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

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

You have to attack once the truth is too weak to defend itself.

In the contradiction lies the hope.

Terrible is the temptation to be good.

?When the leaders speak of peace ?The common folk know ?That war is coming ?When the leaders curse war ?The mobilization order is already written out. Every day, to earn my daily bread ?I go to the market where lies are bought ?Hopefully ?I take up my place among the sellers. ?

A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore.

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.

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.

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

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

You can make a fresh start with your final breath.

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

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.

Love is the wish to give, not to receive.

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

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.

You can't write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

A theater without beer is just a museum

If you wan to steal money, don't rob a bank - open one.

Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.

There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste.

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.

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.

All the gang of those who rule us Hope our quarrels never stop Helping them to split and fool us So they can remain on top.

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 world of knowledge takes a crazy turn When teachers themselves are taught to learn.

Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!

None will improve your lot If you yourself do not.

Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can't bear to see it.

Would it not be simpler If the Government dissolved the people and elected another?

I don't trust him. We're friends.

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.

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.

It's never too late for those whose time has come.

What's a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other.

I don't like where I'm going and I don't like where I've been. Why am I in a hurry?

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

Things take indeed a wondrous turn When learned men do stoop to learn.

Righteous people have no sense of humor.

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

The shrill voices of those who give orders Are full of fear like the squeakings of Piglets awaiting the butcher's knife, as their fat arses Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs.... Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but The rulers too.

He who is still laughing is he who hasn't heard the terrible news.

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

Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer.

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

Little changes are the enemies of great changes.

It isn't important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.

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

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

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

The fate of man is man.

If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.