“One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works.”
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Meister Eckhart 69
German theologian 1260–1328Related quotes

Games for Actors and non-Actors (1992)
Context: In truth the Theatre of the Oppressed has no end, because everything which happens in it must extend into life…. The Theatre of the Oppressed is located precisely on the frontier between fiction and reality – and this border must be crossed. If the show starts in fiction, its objective is to become integrated into reality, into life. Now in 1992, when so many certainties have become so many doubts, when so many dreams have withered on exposure to sunlight, and so many hopes have become as many deceptions – now that we are living through times and situations of great perplexity, full of doubts and uncertainties, now more than ever I believe it is time for a theatre which, at its best, will ask the right questions at the right times. Let us be democratic and ask our audiences to tell us their desires, and let us show them alternatives. Let us hope that one day – please, not too far in the future – we’ll be able to convince or force our governments, our leaders, to do the same; to ask their audiences – us – what they should do, so as to make this world a place to live and be happy in – yes, it is possible – rather than just a vast market in which we sell our goods and our souls. Let’s hope. Let’s work for it!
Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XII : The Greening Of America, p. 351

Speech on the Patriot Act, 2003 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O7D7nDF0U8
2000s, 2001-2005


“Neither pleasure nor pain should enter as motives when one must do what must be done.”
Source: Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

Quoted by L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley in letter to the editor Los Angeles Times (13 May 1985)