Bertolt Brecht Quotes

128 Sourced Quotes

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.

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

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

Bertolt Brecht
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.

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

Bertolt Brecht
Those who are weak don't fight.
Those who are stronger might fight
for an hour.
Those who are stronger still might fight
for many years.
The strongest fight
their whole life.
They are the indispensable ones.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

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
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?

Bertolt Brecht
Love is also like a coconut which is good while it is fresh, but you have to spit it out when the juice is gone, what's left tastes bitter.

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

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
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.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

Bertolt Brecht
When something seems 'the most obvious thing in the world' it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.

Bertolt Brecht
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.

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

Bertolt Brecht
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough. When I say what things are like
Everyone's heart must be torn to shreds.
That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself
Surely you see that.

Bertolt Brecht
For time flows on, and if it did not, it would be a bad prospect for those who do not sit at golden tables. Methods become exhausted; stimuli no longer work. New problems appear and demand new methods. Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must also change. Nothing comes from nothing; the new comes from the old, but that is why it is new.

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

Bertolt Brecht
Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes!…
Galileo: No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes.

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

Bertolt Brecht
GALILEO:...Knowledge will become a passion and research an ecstasy.

Bertolt Brecht