Bertolt Brecht Quotes

1898-1956, German Dramatist, Poet
quotes
27
topics
12
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“Don't tell me peace has broken out.”
Peace
“War is like love, it always finds a way.”
War
“Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.”
Heroes and Heroism
“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?”
Mystery
“From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first.”
Dress
“No one will improve your lot if you do not yourself.”
Responsibility
“Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.”
Life and Living
“No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.”
Goodness
“What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?”
Bankers and Banking
“People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.”
Faces
“Science knows only one commandment -- contribute to science.”
Science and Scientists
“It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.”
Bankers and Banking
“Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.”
Wisdom
“For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.”
Sex
“The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn when teachers themselves are taught to learn.”
Teachers and Teaching
“Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph which soon turns into a cry of fear.”
Invention and Inventor
“There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.”
Leaders and Leadership
“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”
Media
“You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.”
Insurance
“People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.”
Endurance
“A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.”
Acting and Actors
“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.”
Law and Lawyers
“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.”
Reality
“A man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a three penny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll have him cold-bloodedly handed over to the police.”
Charity
“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.”
Theater