Top 100 Bertolt Brecht Quotes
#1. Art is not a mirror held up to society but a hammer with which to shape it.
Bertolt Brecht
#3. The rain Never falls upwards. When the wound Stops hurting What hurts is The scar.
Bertolt Brecht
#4. Great sport begins at a point where it has ceased to be healthy.
Bertolt Brecht
#5. Unhappiness doesn't grow on the chest like leprosy. Poverty won't fall off the roof like a loose tile, no; poverty and unhappiness are man's doing.
Bertolt Brecht
#6. Carpenter: "Call Shen Te, someone! She's good!"
Shui Ta: "Certainly. She's ruined.
Bertolt Brecht
#7. Spring is noticed, if at all By people sitting in railway trains.
Bertolt Brecht
#10. 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
#11. Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?
Bertolt Brecht
#12. Telling me there's no difference between the moon and the Earth?
Bertolt Brecht
#13. When the house of a great one collapses Many little ones are slain.
Bertolt Brecht
#14. NEPHEW: One cannot be arraigned for declaring a war, which every ruler has to do once in a while, but only for running a war badly.
Bertolt Brecht
#15. The storm that bends the birch trees Is held to be violent But how about the storm That bends the backs of the roadworkers?
Bertolt Brecht
#16. A good soldier has his heart and soul in it. When he receives an order, he gets a hard on, and when he drives his lance through his enemy's guts, he comes.
Bertolt Brecht
#17. The rope has been torn; a knot
Can tie it again, but
It's been torn.
Perhaps we'll meet again, but
You won't find me
In the place where we parted ways.
Bertolt Brecht
#18. People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.
Bertolt Brecht
#19. For the wickedness of the world is so great you have to run your legs off in order to avoid having them stolen from under you.
Bertolt Brecht
#20. I hope I can pull the wagon by myself. Yes, I'll manage, there's not much in it now. I must get back into business.
Bertolt Brecht
#23. The mill wheel turns, it turns forever, though what is uppermost remains not so.
Bertolt Brecht
#24. 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
#25. You have to attack once the truth is too weak to defend itself.
Bertolt Brecht
#27. From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people ... it needs no other passport than fun.
Bertolt Brecht
#28. 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
#30. No one will improve your lot if you do not yourself.
Bertolt Brecht
#31. A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore.
Bertolt Brecht
#33. People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.
Bertolt Brecht
#34. You can make a fresh start with your final breath.
Bertolt Brecht
#36. Who built the seven towers of Thebes?
The books are filled with the names of kings.
Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? ...
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? ...
Bertolt Brecht
#39. Four generals
Set our for Iran.
With the first one, war did not agree.
The second never won a victory.
For the third the weather never was right.
For the fourth the men would never fight.
Four generals
And not a single man!
Bertolt Brecht
#41. Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army?
Philip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who
Triumphed with him?
Bertolt Brecht
#42. Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.
Bertolt Brecht
#43. Therefore learn how to see and not to gape.
To act instead of talking all day long.
The world was almost won by such an ape!
The nations put him where his kind belong.
But don't rejoice too soon at your escape -
The womb he crawled from is still going strong.
Bertolt Brecht
#44. The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.
Bertolt Brecht
#46. Well, where is she ? Where the colossal / Mountains of smoke stand. / That thing there amongst the fires / Is her.
Bertolt Brecht
#48. Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life
Bertolt Brecht
#49. I discovered our dear poet in my office, a simple clerk.
Bertolt Brecht
#50. For art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group.
Bertolt Brecht
#51. 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
#52. Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.
Bertolt Brecht
#53. All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.
Bertolt Brecht
#54. It was never decreed that a god mustn't pay hotel bills.
Bertolt Brecht
#55. Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.
Bertolt Brecht
#56. One can describe the world of today to the people of today only if one describes it as capable of alteration.
Bertolt Brecht
#57. He thought in other heads, and in his own, others besides himself thought
Bertolt Brecht
#59. The wickedness of the world is so great, you have to keep running so your legs won't be stolen from under you!
Bertolt Brecht
#60. In the dark times will there be singing?
Yes. There will be singing about the dark times.
Bertolt Brecht
#61. You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!
Bertolt Brecht
#62. 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
#63. 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
#64. The finest plans have always been spoiled by the littleness of them that should carry them out. Even emperors can't do it all by themselves.
Bertolt Brecht
#65. Something ignoble, loathsome, undignified attends all associations between people and has been transferred to all objects, dwelling, tools, even the landscape itself.
Bertolt Brecht
#67. If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.
Bertolt Brecht
#68. Every time you name yourself, you name someone else.
Bertolt Brecht
#69. There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.
Bertolt Brecht
#70. What's a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other.
Bertolt Brecht
#71. For the task assigned them Men aren't smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.
Bertolt Brecht
#73. Who struggles can fail. Who doesn't struggle has already failed!
Bertolt Brecht
#74. There are a few things that'll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they've been used several times, they no longer work.
Bertolt Brecht
#75. Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.
Bertolt Brecht
#77. A Man lives off his head.
His head won't see him through.
Inspect your own
What lives on that?
At most, a louse or two ...
Bertolt Brecht
#78. The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn when teachers themselves are taught to learn.
Bertolt Brecht
#79. To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
Bertolt Brecht
#80. What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover, only the clover isn't good enough.
Bertolt Brecht
#82. I'm in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.
Bertolt Brecht
#83. How can one remain free of every weakness, above all of the most deadly, of love?
Bertolt Brecht
#84. If you wan to steal money, don't rob a bank - open one.
Bertolt Brecht
#86. It isn't important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.
Bertolt Brecht
#88. Love is the desire to give, not to receive, something. Love is the art of producing something with the other's talents.
Bertolt Brecht
#89. Would it not be simpler If the Government Dissolved the people And elected another?
Bertolt Brecht
#90. When the waters poured into Atlantis, the rich men still screamed for their slaves.
Bertolt Brecht
#91. Don't accept the habitual as a natural thing. In times of disorder, of organized confusion, of de-humanized humanity, nothing should seem natural. Nothing should seem impossible to change.
Bertolt Brecht
#92. The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.
Bertolt Brecht
#93. Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.
Bertolt Brecht
#94. All the world says: yes we know what's written in the books but now let's see what our eyes tell us.
Bertolt Brecht
#95. 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
#96. Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.
Bertolt Brecht
#97. For the villainy of the world is great, and a man has to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen out fom underneath him.
Bertolt Brecht
#98. People are taken much too seriously. one equals no one. anything less than two hundred at a time is not worth mentioning. of course, anybody can be of a different opinion. an opinion is of no consequence whatever. any level-headed man can level headedly adopt two or three different opinions.
Bertolt Brecht
#99. For once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
Bertolt Brecht
#100. 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.
Bertolt Brecht
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
