Bertolt Brecht
To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.Collection: Fire
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.Collection: Reality
Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the running to spread the truth among such persons.Collection: Running
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Summer
When the leaders speak of peace, the common folk know war is coming.Collection: War
Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.Collection: Anger
In the contradiction lies the hope.Collection: Lying
It isn't important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.Collection: Acceptance
Love is the wish to give, not to receive.Collection: Love Is
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.Collection: Wisdom
Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.Collection: Country
If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.Collection: Race
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.Collection: Art
You can't write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.Collection: Writing
The war which is coming Is not the first one. There were Other wars before it. When the last one came to an end There were conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered the common people Starved. Among the conquerors The common people starved too.Collection: War
Never believe on faith, see for yourself! What you yourself don't learn you don't know.Collection: Believe
I don't trust him. We're friends.Collection: Friendship
Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.Collection: Home
He who is still laughing is he who hasn't heard the terrible news.Collection: Laughing
There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste.Collection: Taste
If you fight you might lose, if you don't you have already lost.Collection: Fighting
Let nothing be called natural In an age of bloody confusion, Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanized humanity, lest all things Be held unalterable!Collection: Nature
Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!Collection: Country
It's never too late for those whose time has come.Collection: Too Late
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.Collection: Order
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.Collection: War
Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.Collection: Running
A theater without beer is just a museumCollection: Beer
Little changes are the enemies of great changes.Collection: Change
One can describe the world of today to the people of today only if one describes it as capable of alteration.Collection: People
What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors?Collection: Silence
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.Collection: Confusion
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.Collection: Feelings
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.Collection: Government
You have to attack once the truth is too weak to defend itself.Collection: Truth Is
Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.Collection: Freedom
Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.Collection: Reality
A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore.Collection: Thinking
He who speaks of enemies , himself is the enemy.Collection: Enemy
War is like love, it always finds a way.Collection: Love
All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.Collection: Art
Writers can't write as fast as governments make wars; because to write demands thinking.Collection: War
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.Collection: Crush
People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.Collection: Fighting
If you wan to steal money, don't rob a bank - open one.Collection: Money
None will improve your lot If you yourself do not.Collection: Inspirational