Bertolt Brecht famous quotes

Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Art #Reality #Mirrors

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Happiness #Happy #High Heels

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

#Life #Death #Anticipation

People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Fighting #People #May

The rain Never falls upwards. When the wound Stops hurting What hurts is The scar.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Hurt #Rain #Fall

Everyone needs help from everyone.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Needs #Helping #Environment

Poverty makes you wise but it's a curse.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Wise #Poverty #Curse

Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Moving On #Wisdom #Mistake

Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Book #Men #Weapons

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

#Change #Moving On #Stay Strong

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

#Fighting #Might #Lost

War is like love, it always finds a way.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Life #War #Way

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

#Crush #Powerful #Men

He who fights, can lose. He who doesn't fight, has already lost.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Fighting #Lost

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

#Wisdom #Science #Errors

The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. 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

#Summer #Rain #Fall

To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Fire #Doe #World

Don't tell me peace has broken out.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Peace #Broken

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.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Struggle #Men #Years

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

#Mean #Finesse #Process

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.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Crush #Powerful #Men

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

#Wisdom #Mistake #Wine

Schoenberg is too melodious for me, too sweet.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Sweet #Musical #Schoenberg

...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Simplicity #Difficult

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

#Fall #People #Faces

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

#War #Communication #Media

None will improve your lot If you yourself do not.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

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

#Fun #People #Theatre

Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Wise #Poverty #Wells

People who understand everything get no stories.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#People #Stories

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

#Kissing #Race #Abuse

Life is short and so is money.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Life Is Short #Life Is

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

#Art

Why be a man when you can be a success?
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

Grub first, then ethics.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Food #Cooking #Firsts

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

#Teacher #Crazy #Literature

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

#Nature #Confusion #Humanity

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

#Science #Accounts

Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Life #Death #Fear

From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Underwear #Coffins #Literature

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

#Kindness #Be Kind #Kind

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

#Happiness #Hero #Land

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

#Inspirational #Dark #Singing

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

#Funny Money #Robbing #Founding

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

#Silence #Tree #Kind

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Fog #Clerks #Bankers

First the grub, then the morals.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Firsts #Moral #Miscellaneous

The alienation effect in German epic theater is achieved not only through the actors, but also through music (chorus and song) andsets (transparencies, film strips, etc.). Its main purpose is to place the staged events in their historical context.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Song #Art #Epic

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.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Art #Reality #Discovery

Food first, then morality.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Firsts #Morality #Eating

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

#Taken #Writing #Reality

Would it not be simpler If the Government Dissolved the people And elected another?
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Government #People

The righteous one has no sense of humor.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Humor #Sense Of Humor #Righteous

　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. 　
-- Bertolt Brecht

#War #Lying #Order

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

#Feelings #Historical #Theatre

Oh! Moon of Alabama We now must say good-bye We've lost our good old mama And must have whiskey Oh, you know why!
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Moon #Bye #Alabama

Eats first, morals after.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Firsts #Moral

I don't know what a man is. Only that every man has his price.
-- Bertolt Brecht

#Men