Bertolt Brecht Quotes

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

Bertolt Brecht
Science knows only one commandment – contribute to science.

Bertolt Brecht
What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

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

Bertolt Brecht
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.

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

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

Bertolt Brecht
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

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

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

Bertolt Brecht
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.

Bertolt Brecht
The mill wheel turns, it turns forever, though what is uppermost remains not so.

Bertolt Brecht
Show interest in her goodness, for no one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

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

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

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

Bertolt Brecht
One observes, they have gone too long without a war here. Where is morality to come from in such a case, I ask? Peace is nothing but slovenliness, only war creates order.

Bertolt Brecht
Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!

Bertolt Brecht
You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy
But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!

Bertolt Brecht
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.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

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

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

Bertolt Brecht
The plum tree in the yard's so small
It's hardly like a tree at all.
Yet there it is, railed round
To keep it safe and sound. The poor thing can't grow any more
Though if it could it would for sure.
There's nothing to be done
It gets too little sun.

Bertolt Brecht
Worship with fulness of heart the weak memory of heaven!
It cannot trace
Either your name or your face
Nobody knows you're still living.

Bertolt Brecht
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?…
Where, the evening that the wall of China was finished
Did the masons go?

Bertolt Brecht
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.

Bertolt Brecht
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

Bertolt Brecht