176 Quotes by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht, a German poet, playwright, and theatre director, made profound contributions to 20th-century theatre with his innovative and influential approach to drama. Known for his epic theatre style, Brecht sought to engage audiences intellectually and provoke critical thinking about social and political issues. He challenged traditional dramatic conventions and embraced techniques such as distancing, breaking the fourth wall, and the use of placards and songs to interrupt the narrative and create a more reflective experience for the audience.
Brecht's plays, including "The Threepenny Opera" and "Mother Courage and Her Children," tackled themes of class struggle, capitalism, and the corrupting influence of power. His works were not only artistic creations but also tools for social and political commentary, aimed at inciting social change and promoting a more just society.
Brecht's influence on modern theatre is immeasurable, as his ideas and techniques continue to shape the way theatre is conceived, performed, and understood. His legacy as a visionary playwright, poet, and political thinker remains enduring, reminding us of the transformative power of art and its capacity to provoke thought and inspire action.
Bertolt Brecht Quotes
First comes food, then morals. (Meaning)
The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn when teachers themselves are taught to learn. (Quote Meaning)
He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news. (Meaning)
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it. (Quote Meaning)
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.
He who fights, can lose. He who doesn't fight, has already lost. (Meaning)
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.
Don't expect the theatre to satisfy the habits of its audience, but to change them.
Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels. (Quote Meaning)
Who does Not Know the Truth, is simply a Fool... Yet who Knows the Truth and Calls it a Lie, is a Criminal.
Bank robbery is an initiative of amateurs. True professionals establish a bank.
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.
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.
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.
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.
Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life. (Meaning)
Would it not be simpler If the Government dissolved the people and elected another?
"Some party hack decreed that the people
had lost the government's confidence
and could only regain it with redoubled effort.
If that is the case, would it not be simpler,
If the government simply dissolved the people
And elected another?"
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.
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.
Love is the wish to give, not to receive.
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Quote Meaning)
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.
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes. (Meaning)
To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?
Schoenberg is too melodious for me, too sweet.
Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon. (Meaning)
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.
Everyone needs help from everyone.
All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.
From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first. (Quote Meaning)
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.
Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.
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.
Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good. (Meaning)
Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. (Quote Meaning)
People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.
War is like love; it always finds a way. (Meaning)
For art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group.
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error. (Quote Meaning)
If you fight you might lose, if you don't you have already lost.
One can describe the world of today to the people of today only if one describes it as capable of alteration.
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.
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.
To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.
Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can't bear to see it.
Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably. (Meaning)
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.
If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.
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.
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.
From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people ... it needs no other passport than fun.
If you don't have fun, you don't have a show.
Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!
You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.
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.
Terrible is the temptation to be good.
A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore.
What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?
I'm in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.
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.
Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.
Firebugs dragging their gasoline bottles are approaching the Academy of Arts, with a grin. And so, instead of embracing them, let us demand the freedom of the elbow to knock the bottles out of their filthy hands. Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat, provided he loves peace, is a greater lover of the arts than any so-called art-lover who loves the arts of war.
For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
Poverty makes you wise but it's a curse. (Quote Meaning)
What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
You have to attack once the truth is too weak to defend itself.
It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.
Writers can't write as fast as governments make wars; because to write demands thinking.
No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.
When teachers themselves are taught to learn. (Meaning)
Little changes are the enemies of great changes.
Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.
Science knows only one commandment - contribute to science.
A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.
Let nothing be called natural In an age of bloody confusion, Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanized humanity, lest all things Be held unalterable!
Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.
Right is its own defense.
People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart. (Meaning)
Here today we huddle tight As the darkest heathens might The snow falls chilly on our skin The snow is forcing its way in. Hush, snow, come in with us to dwell: We were thrown out by Heaven as well.
Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.
Grub first, then ethics. (Meaning)
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone? (Quote Meaning)
He who is still laughing is he who hasn't heard the terrible news.
What a miserable thing life is: you're in clover; only the clover isn't good enough.
You can make a fresh start with your final breath.
It's never too late for those whose time has come. (Meaning)
The fate of man is man.
Go make yourself a plan And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, For neither will come right.
Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty Often have a share in their misfortunes.
Don't tell me peace has broken out.
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.
For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?
First the grub, then the morals. (Meaning)
Never believe on faith, see for yourself! What you yourself don't learn you don't know.
There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste.
None will improve your lot If you yourself do not. (Meaning)
Why be a man when you can be a success? (Meaning)
Life is short and so is money.
There must always be some who are brighter and some who are stupider, the latter make up for it by being better workers.
If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors. (Meaning)
General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.
The rain Never falls upwards. When the wound Stops hurting What hurts is The scar.
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.
In the contradiction lies the hope.
Whenever there are great virtues, it's a sure sign something's wrong. (Quote Meaning)
People who understand everything get no stories.
I don't trust him. We're friends.
He who speaks of enemies , himself is the enemy. (Meaning)
When something seems ‘the most obvious thing in the world’ it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.
Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer. (Meaning)
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise. (Meaning)
The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom.
My brother Shelley found it was a place
Much like the city of London. I
Who live in Los Angeles and not in London
Find, on thinking about Hell, that it must be
Still more like Los Angeles."
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.
I don't like where I'm going and I don't like where I've been. Why am I in a hurry?
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.
The fanatics for progress often have too little appreciation of the existing.
...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
The right to happiness is fundamental; men live so little time and die alone.
For the task assigned them Men aren't smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.
Who struggles can fail. Who doesn't struggle has already failed!
People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.
There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two. (Meaning)
When the leaders speak of peace, the common folk know war is coming.
If you wan to steal money, don't rob a bank - open one.
Things take indeed a wondrous turn When learned men do stoop to learn.
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.
The finest plans are always ruined by the littleness of those who ought to carry them out, for emperor himself can actually be nothing.
Temptation to behave is terrible.
The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.
Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.
Today every invention is received with a cry of triumph which soon turns into a cry of fear.
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.
We often do not know ourselves the grounds On which we act, though plain to others.
Spring is noticed, if at all By people sitting in railway trains.
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!
One must live well to know what living is.
The headlong stream is termed violent But the river bed hemming it in is Termed violent by no one.
It was never decreed that a god mustn't pay hotel bills. (Meaning)
First feed the face, then talk right and wrong. (Meaning)
When the wound/ No longer hurts/ The scar does.
One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.
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.
The righteous one has no sense of humor. (Meaning)
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.
Who fights may lose, but who does not fight has lost already.
Even hatred of vileness Distorts a mans features.
What they could do with 'round here is a good war. What else can you expect with peace running wild all over the place? You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization.
The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.
I don't know what a man is. Only that every man has his price.
It isn't important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.
As regards obstacles, the shortest distance between two points can be a curve.
Righteous people have no sense of humor.
What's a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other.
You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!
Impact lies in the vicinity of mistakes.
With drooping shoulders The majority sit hunched, their foreheads furrowed like Stony ground that has been repeatedly ploughed-up to no purpose.
Fearful is the seductive power of goodness. (Meaning)
But something's missing.
The storm that bends the birch trees Is held to be violent But how about the storm That bends the backs of the roadworkers?
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.
A theater without beer is just a museum (Meaning)
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
It’s all right to hesitate if you then go ahead. (Quote Meaning)
Great sport begins at a point where it has ceased to be healthy.
Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have good taste.
Only bad generals need heroes.
There are some with brains and some without. It makes for a better division of labour.
You can't write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen. (Meaning)
People cannot remain good unless good is expected of them.
Love is the desire to give, not to receive, something. Love is the art of producing something with the other's talents.
Eats first, morals after.
Who has good luck is good, Who has bad luck is bad.
First the pork chops, then morality
Pleasures First look from morning's window The rediscovered book Fascinated faces Snow, the change of the seasons The newspaper The dog Dialectics Showering, swimming Old music Comfortable shoes Comprehension New music Writing, planting Traveling Singing Being friendly
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you!
When the house of a great one collapses Many little ones are slain.
When you name yourself, you always name another.
The mill wheel turns, it turns forever, though what is uppermost remains not so.
Who built the seven gates of Thebes? In the books are listed the names of kings. Did the kings heave up the building blocks?
Something ignoble, loathsome, undignified attends all associations between people and has been transferred to all objects, dwelling, tools, even the landscape itself.
When the praying does no good, insurance does help.
What rapture, oh, it is to know A good thing when you see it And having seen a good thing, oh, What rapture 'tis to flee it.
Their peace and their war Are like wind and storm. War grows from their peace.
― Bertolt Brecht Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
