13 Bertolt Brecht Quotes on Art

Bertolt Brecht quotes on art

3. 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.

5. 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.

15. 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.

34. 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.

36. For art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group.

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

38. 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.

42. Oh the harsh snarl of guitar strings roaring! Heavenly distensions of our throats! Trousers stiff with dirt and love! Such whoring! Long green slimy nights: we were like stoats.

48. 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.

51. How long Do works endure? As long As they are not completed.

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

70. Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.

78. If all people want is to see something they understand, they shouldn't go to the theater. They should go to the bathroom.