Bertolt Brecht Quotes

If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.
Bertolt Brecht
War is like love it always finds a way.
Bertolt Brecht
When praying does no good insurance does help.
Bertolt Brecht
Great sport begins at a point where it has ceased to be healthy.
Bertolt Brecht
It isn't important to come out on top what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.
Bertolt Brecht
People remain what they are even when their faces fall to pieces.
Bertolt Brecht
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.
Bertolt Brecht
What's a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other.
Bertolt Brecht
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
Bertolt Brecht
Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph which soon turns into a cry of fear.
Bertolt Brecht
What's a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other.
Bertolt Brecht
It isn't important to come out on top what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.
Bertolt Brecht
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
Bertolt Brecht
Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph which soon turns into a cry of fear.
Bertolt Brecht
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.
Bertolt Brecht
People are too durable that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves they last too long.
Bertolt Brecht
Everyone needs help from everyone.
Bertolt Brecht
Everyone chases after happiness not noticing that happiness is at their heels.
Bertolt Brecht
Fearful is the seductive power of goodness.
Bertolt Brecht
What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover only the clover isn't good enough.
Bertolt Brecht
It isn't important to come out on top. What matters is to come out alive.
Bertolt Brecht
Intelligence is not to make no mistakes but quickly to see how to make them good.
Bertolt Brecht
The mill wheel turns it turns forever though what is uppermost remains not so.
Bertolt Brecht
Because things are the way they are things will not stay the way they are.
Bertolt Brecht
First of all, they came to take the gypsiesand I was happy because they pilfered.Then they came to take the Jews and I said nothing, because they were unpleasant to me.Then they came to take homosexuals,and I was relieved, because they were annoying me.Then they came to take the Communists,and I said nothing because I was not a Communist.One day they came to take me,and there was nobody left to protest.Bertold Brecht, inspired by Emil Gustav Friedrich Martin Niemöller
Bertolt Brecht
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features, Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly. Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,Could never be friendly ourselves.
Bertolt Brecht
Such a lot is won when even a single man gets to his feet and says No
Bertolt Brecht
Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.
Bertolt Brecht
Carpenter: "Call Shen Te, someone! She's good!"Shui Ta: "Certainly. She's ruined.
Bertolt Brecht
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.
Bertolt Brecht
For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?
Bertolt Brecht
Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht
Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.
Bertolt Brecht
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.
Bertolt Brecht
Character is a question of time. It lasts for a certain length of time, just like a glove. There are good ones that last a long time. But they don't last forever.
Bertolt Brecht
You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy, but till you feed us right and wrong can wait. Or is it only those who have the money who can enter the land of milk and honey?
Bertolt Brecht
Some party hack decreed that the peoplehad lost the government's confidenceand could only regain it with redoubled effort.If that is the case, would it not be be simpler,If the government simply dissolved the peopleAnd elected another?
Bertolt Brecht
And I did work out something: that the rich of the earth indeed create misery, but they cannot bear to see it. They are weaklings and fools just like you. As long as they have enough to eat and can grease their floors with butter so that even the crumbs that fall from your table grow fat, they can't look with indifference on a man collapsing from hunger - although, of course, it must be in front of their house that he collapses.
Bertolt Brecht
He says he'd like to kiss the ground you walk on-reminds me, did you wash them yesterday?- and after that you're his skivvy.
Bertolt Brecht
If we could learn to look instead of gawking,We'd see the horror in the heart of farce,If only we could act instead of talking,We wouldn't always end up on our arse.This was the thing that nearly had us mastered;Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,The bitch that bore him is in heat again.
Bertolt Brecht
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.
Bertolt Brecht
Sometimes I see myself driving through hell with this wagon and selling brimstone. And sometimes I’m driving through heaven handing our provisions to wandering souls! If only we could find a place where there’s no shooting, me and my children—what’s left of ‘em—we might rest a while.
Bertolt Brecht
The war which is comingIs not the first one. There wereOther wars before it.When the last one came to an endThere were conquerors and conquered.Among the conquered the common peopleStarved. Among the conquerorsThe common people starved too.
Bertolt Brecht
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.
Bertolt Brecht
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
Those who are weak don't fight.Those who are stronger might fightfor an hour.Those who are stronger still might fightfor many years.The strongest fighttheir whole life.They are the indispensable ones.
Bertolt Brecht
We're not responsible, he thought. This planet is a temporary affair. It's whizzing with all kinds of other ones, a whole range of planetary stuff, toward a star in the Milky Way. On that kind of a planet we're not responsible, he thought.
Bertolt Brecht
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.
Bertolt Brecht
We're not responsible, he thought. This planet is a temporary affair. It's whizzing with all kinds of other ones, a whole range of planetary stuff, toward a star in the Milky Way. On that kind of a planet we're not responsible, he thought.
Bertolt Brecht
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.
Bertolt Brecht
Why be a man when you can be a success.
Bertolt Brecht
People who understand everything get no stories.
Bertolt Brecht
EpitaphDen Tigern ertrann ichDie Wanzen nährte ichAufgefressen wurde ichVon den Mittelmäßigkeiten.
Bertolt Brecht
Corpses sour you. They are bad for objectivity.
Bertolt Brecht
The compassion of the oppressed for the oppressed is indispensable. It is the world's one hope.
Bertolt Brecht
Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.
Bertolt Brecht
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes
Bertolt Brecht
Natürlich muss die Wahrheit im Kampf mit der Unwahrheit geschrieben werden und sie darf nicht etwas Allgemeines, Hohes, Vieldeutiges sein. Von dieser allgemeinen, hohen, vieldeutigen Art ist ja gerade die Unwahrheit. Wenn von einem gesagt wird, er hat die Wahrheit gesagt, so haben zunächst einige oder viele oder einer etwas anderes gesagt, eine Lüge oder etwas Allgemeines, aber er hat die Wahrheit gesagt, etwas Praktisches, Tatsächliches, Unleugbares, das, um was es sich handelte.
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