Bertolt Brecht Quotes 102 Thought-Provoking Insights into Society, Politics, and the Human Condition

“Sometimes I have visions of myself driving through hell, selling sulphur and brimstone, or through heaven peddling refreshments to the roaming souls. If me and the children I've got left could find a place where there's no shooting, I wouldn't mind a few years of peace and quiet.”

Mistakenly attributed to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9; mistakenly attributed to Brecht in Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80; variant translation: "Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."
First recorded in Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (1924; edited by William Keach (2005), Ch. 4: Futurism, p. 120): "Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes."
Disputed

“This is the year which people will talk about
This is the year which people will be silent about.The old see the young die.
The foolish see the wise die.The earth no longer produces, it devours.
The sky hurls down no rain, only iron.”

Mother Courage
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)

“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.”

"Finland 1940" [Finnland 1940] (1940), trans. Sammy McLean in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 350
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have good taste.”

"The Popular and the Realistic" (written 1938, published 1958), as translated in Brecht on Theatre (1964) edited and translated by John Willett.

“The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.”

“People who understand everything get no stories.”

"To Those Born Later", part of the Svendborg Poems (1939)
quoted in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 318
Variation: He who laughs last has not yet heard the bad news.
German: Wer jetzt noch lacht, hat die neuesten Nachrichten noch nicht gehört.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Bertolt Brecht Quotes about people

“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.”

“My business is too difficult. My business is trying to arouse human pity. There are 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. So it happens, for instance, that a man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time that he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a threepenny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll hand him over cold-bloodedly to the police.”

Source: Poems 1913-1956

“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.”

Peachum in Act 1, scene 1, pp. 5-6
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

“A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.”

“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?”

"Emphasis on Sport" in the Berliner Börsen-Courier (6 February 1926), as quoted in Brecht on Theatre (1964) edited and translated by John Willett.

Bertolt Brecht Die Lösung

"The Solution" ["Die Lösung"] (c. 1953), as translated in Brecht on Brecht : An Improvisation (1967) by George Tabori, p. 17
Variant translation:
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had flyers distributed in Stalin Way that said
That the People had frivolously
Thrown away the Government's Confidence
And that they could only regain it
Through Redoubled Work. But wouldn't it be
Simpler if the Government
Simply dissolved the People
And elected another?

Bertolt Brecht Quotes about war

“What if they gave a war and no one came? Then the war will come to you.”

“Who built Thebes of the 7 gates ?
In the books you will read the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock ?

And Babylon, many times demolished,
Who raised it up so many times ?

In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live ?
Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go?

Great Rome is full of triumphal arches.
Who erected them?

Over whom did the Caesars triumph?

Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants ?

Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it,
The drowning still cried out for their slaves.

The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?

Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not even have a cook with him?

Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down.
Was he the only one to weep?

Frederick the Second won the Seven Years' War.
Who else won it?

Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?

Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?

So many reports.

So many questions.”

Amalgamation of Carl Sandburg's quote "Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come" with a sentence from Brecht's Koloman Wallisch Kantate: "When the people are disarmed / War will come" ("Wenn das Volk entwaffnet ist / Kommt der Krieg"). - Source http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/q-war-nobody-came.html <br class="br">Misattributed

“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”

"Questions from a worker who reads" [Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters] (1935) from The Svendborg Poems (1939); trans. Michael Hamburger in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 252
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“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.”

¶ 55
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)

“War is like love, it always finds a way.”

"Freedom for Whom", as translated in Brecht on Brecht : An Improvisation (1967) by George Tabori, p. 18
Context: 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.

“Events cast long shadows before.
One such event would be a war.
But how are shadows to be seen
When total darkness fills the screen?”

The Chaplain, in Scene 6, p. 76
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)

“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.”

"Alphabet" [Alfabet] from "Five Children's Songs" (1934), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 239
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Bertolt Brecht: Trending quotes

“General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.”

"Solidarity song" [Solidaritätslied] (1931), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 186
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.”

"General, Your Tank Is a Powerful Vehicle", in "From a German War Primer", part of the Svendborg Poems (1939); as translated by Lee Baxandall in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 289
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.”

Bertolt Brecht Quotes

Bertolt Brecht book Life of Galileo

Source: Life of Galileo (1939)

“Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.”

“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.”

“Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.”

First recorded in Terra Nossa: Newsletter of Project Abraço, North Americans in Solidarity with the People of Brazil http://books.google.gr/books?id=iR68AAAAIAAJ&q=, Vols. 1–7, Resource Center for Nonviolence, 1988, p. 42. No citation to a book by Brecht is given. <br class="br">Disputed

“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.”

“Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women.”

“The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is an escape for him. That's great art — nothing is self-evident. I am made to laugh about those who cry, and cry about those who laugh.”

A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)
Context: 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.

“Thus for art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group.”

"Entertainment or Education? (1936)
Context: The theater-goer in conventional dramatic theater says: Yes, I've felt that way, too. That's the way I am. That's life. That's the way it will always be. The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is no escape for him. That's great art — Everything is self-evident. I am made to cry with those who cry, and laugh with those who laugh. But the theater-goer in the epic theater says: I would never have thought that. You can't do that. That's very strange, practically unbelievable. That has to stop. The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is an escape for him. That's great art — nothing is self-evident. I am made to laugh about those who cry, and cry about those who laugh.

“That's great art — Everything is self-evident. I am made to cry with those who cry, and laugh with those who laugh.”

¶ 55
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)
Context: Unless an actor is satisfied to be a parrot or a monkey he must master our period's knowledge of human social life by himself joining the war of the classes. Some people may feel this is degrading, because they rank art, once the money side has been settled, as one of the highest things; but mankind's highest decisions are in fact fought out on earth, not in the heavens; in the 'external world', not inside people's heads. Nobody can stand above the warring classes, for nobody can stand above the human race. Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring classes. Thus for art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group.

“Let nothing be called natural
In an age of bloody confusion”

Bertolt Brecht book The Exception and the Rule

The Exception and the Rule (1937), Prologue
Context: Let nothing be called natural
In an age of bloody confusion,
Ordered disorder, planned caprice,
And dehumanized humanity, lest all things
Be held unalterable!

“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.”

“Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!”

Essays on the Art of Theater (1954).
Context: 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.

“Show interest in her goodness — for no one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.”

A response to the Nazi book burnings, in "To Posterity" (1939) as translated by H. R. Hays (1947)
Context: Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!

Bertolt Brecht The Good Person of Szechwan

Bezeig du Interesse an ihrer Güte, denn keiner kann lang gut sein, wenn nicht Güte verlangt wird.
http://books.google.com/books?id=zEhJAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Bezeig+du+Interesse+an+ihrer+G%C3%BCte+denn+keiner+kann+lang+gut+sein+wenn+nicht+G%C3%BCte+verlangt+wird%22&pg=PA116#v=onepage
First God, in Scene 1a, p. 38
The Good Person of Sezuan (1943)

“You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization.”

“Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books?”

The Sergeant, in Scene 1
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)
Context: 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.

“And the shark he has his teeth and
There they are for all to see
And Macheath he has his knife but
No one knows where it may be.”

“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.”

"The Moritat of Mackie the Knife" in Prologue, p. 3
Translation note: A "moritat" (a word meaning both "muderous deed" and "ballad") is a street song telling of murderous crimes.
Lotte Lenya, "Foreword", p. xii
Variant translation: Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear,
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear
And he keeps it out of sight.
Marc Blitzstein translation; largely used for Louis Armstrong's and Bobby Darin's pop renditions of "The Ballad of Mack the Knife"
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

“What is the burgling of a bank to the founding of a bank?”

In den finsteren Zeiten
Wird da auch gesungen werden?
Da wird auch gesungen werden.
Von den finsteren Zeiten.
"Motto to the 'Svendborg Poems' " [Motto der 'Svendborger Gedichte] (1939), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 320
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life”

Macheath, in Act 3, scene 3, p. 92
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

Bertolt Brecht The Mother

Pelagea Vlasova in Scene 10
The Mother (1930)
Variant: Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
Source: Jewish Wife and Other Short Plays: Includes: In Search of Justice; Informer; Elephant Calf; Measures Taken; Exception and the Rule; Salzburg Dance of Death

“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.”

“All artforms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.”

Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.
As quoted in Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1976) by John Gordon Burke and Ned Kehde, p. 224, also in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 390

“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?”

“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

Bertolt Brecht book Life of Galileo

Scene 12, p. 115
Variant translations: Pity the country that needs heroes.
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes
Source: Andrea: Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.
Galileo: No, Andrea: Unhappy is the land that needs a hero. [Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat. ]

“Alas, we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.”

“When something seems ‘the most obvious thing in the world’ it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.”

“Why be a man when you can be a success.”

Source: Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic

“For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?”

“As crimes pile up, they become invisible.”

“If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.”

“To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.”

“Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.”

"Notes on Philosophy" in On Politics and Society (1941).

“Worship with fulness of heart the weak memory of heaven!
It cannot trace
Either your name or your face
Nobody knows you're still living.”

The Singer, in The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1944), Prologue

“You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.”

"Great hymn of thanksgiving" [Grosser Dankchoral] (1920) from The Devotions (1922-1927); trans. Karl Neumann in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 74
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Bertolt Brecht The Mother

Pelagea Vlasova in Scene 10
The Mother (1930)

“But something's missing (Aber etwas fehlt).”

“Of all the works of man I like best
Those which have been used.
The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges
The knives and forks whose wooden handles
Have been worn away by many hands: such forms
Seemed to me the noblest.”

Jim[my] Mahoney, in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930)

“Mr. Wurlitzer, I am now in a position to receive your organ.”

"Of all the works of man" [Von allen Werken] (c. 1932) in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 192
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.”

Happy End (1929)

“For once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.”

On defendants in the Moscow Trials and on innocents betrayed by Communist Party members, as recounted by philosopher Sidney Hook, as quoted in Intellectuals (1990) by Paul Johnson, p. 190; though this might easily be interpreted as implying that anyone who had failed to conspire against Stalin deserved to be shot, Hook implies that he meant that the betrayal of innocents was justified. Henry Pachter is also quoted in Intellectuals as saying that Brecht had made similar remarks in his presence, and had added "Fifty years hence the communists will have forgotten Stalin, but I want to be sure that they will still read Brecht. Therefore I cannot separate myself from the Party."

“Come in, dear wind, and be our guest
You too have neither home nor rest.”

"What Keeps Mankind Alive?" Act 2, sc. 6
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

“Come fishing with me, said the fisherman to the worm.”

"Christmas legend" [Weinachtslegende] (1923) Berliner Börsen-Courier (25 December 1924); trans in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 100
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“On golden chairs
Sitting at ease, you paid for the songs which we chanted
To those less lucky. You paid us for drying their tears
And for comforting all those whom you had wounded.”

Komm, geh mit angeln, sagte der Fischer zum Wurm.
Mutter Courage to the army recruiter when he tries to recruit her son in Scene 1
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)

“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.”

"Song of the cut-price poets" [Lied der preiswerten Lyriker] (1927/1933) from Songs Poems Choruses (1934); in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 161
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“For the task assigned them
Men aren't smart enough or sly
Any rogue can blind them
With a clever lie.”

¶ 35
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)

“And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough. When I say what things are like
Everyone's heart must be torn to shreds.
That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself
Surely you see that.”

Polly Peachum, in "The Song of the Futility of All Human Endeavor"; Act 3, scene 1, p. 75
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

“If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.”

"And I always thought" [Und ich dachte immer] (c. 1956), trans. Michael Hamburger in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 452
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“Every day, to earn my daily bread
I go to the market where lies are bought
Hopefully
I take up my place among the sellers.”

¶ 73
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)

“You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy
But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!”

"Hollywood" (1942)
quoted in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 382
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“The rain
Never falls upwards.
When the wound
Stops hurting
What hurts is
The scar.”

Macheath in "Second Threepenny-Finale"; Act 2, scene 3, p. 67
Variant translations:
However much you twist, whatever lies you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on.
Used by the Pet Shop Boys, in "What Keeps Mankind Alive?", Can You Forgive Her (1993 EP)
Food first, then morality.
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

“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.”

"Poems Belonging to a Reader for Those who Live in Cities" [Zum Lesebuch für Städtebewohner gehörige Gedichte] (1926-1927), poem 10, trans. Frank Jones in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 148
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“Marie Farrar: month of birth, April
Died in the Meissen penitentiary
An unwed mother, judged by the law, she will
Show you how all that lives, lives frailly.
You who bear your sons in laundered linen sheets
And call your pregnancies a "blessed" state
Should never damn the outcast and the weak:
Her sin was heavy, but her suffering great.
Therefore, I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.”

"When evil-doing comes like falling rain" [Wenn die Untat kommt, wie der Regen fällt] (1935), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 247
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)