Bertolt Brecht Quotes

Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.

He who fights, can lose. He who doesn't fight, has already lost.

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 right at their heels.

Bank robbery is an initiative of amateurs. True professionals establish a bank.

Who does Not Know the Truth, is simply a Fool... Yet who Knows the Truth and Calls it a Lie, is a Criminal.

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.

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.

Would it not be simpler If the Government 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.

Love is the wish to give, not to receive.

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

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

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?

Boy Meets Girl, So What?

Schoenberg is too melodious for me, too sweet.

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

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

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.

From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first.

Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.

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

Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.

People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

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.

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.

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.

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

Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can't bear to see it.

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.

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

To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.

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.

From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people ... it needs no other passport than fun.

Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!

If you don't have fun, you don't have a show.

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.

What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?

A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore.

I am a playwright. I show What I have seen. In the man markets I have seen how men are traded. That I show, I, the playwright.

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.