Bertolt Brecht Quotes on Brecht

10 quotes

  1. I see with sympathy The swollen veins on his brow, showing How exhausting it is to be evil.

  2. 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.

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

  4. Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

  5. 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.

  6. 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?

  7. 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.

  8. Little changes are the enemies of great changes.

  9. 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.

    #69 Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
  10. Under Capitalism you sell your piss to the urinal.

All Bertolt Brecht quotes