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

Bertolt Brecht

A man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time he’ll give him sixpence. But the second time it’ll only be a three penny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he’ll have him cold-bloodedly handed over to the police.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Giving Men Police Six Street Time
Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Reality Taken Writing
General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.
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Defect Men Thinking
Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Art Hammers Mirrors
The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren’t always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Defeat Sunset Victory
What a miserable thing life is: you’re in clover; only the clover isn’t good enough.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Gratitude Life Sadness
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.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Approaching Folk Hands Knives Men
People who understand everything get no stories.
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People Stories Understand
Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Belief Men Running
Temptation to behave is terrible.
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Literature Temptation Terrible
If you join the rat race — you’re in the race of rats.
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Join Race Rat
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.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Government People War
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.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Audience Discovery Experience Joy Pleasure Schooled
There are a 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.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Moving People Trouble
Who struggles can fail. Who doesn’t struggle has already failed!
BERTOLT BRECHT

Diversity Justice Struggle
With drooping shoulders The majority sit hunched, their foreheads furrowed like Stony ground that has been repeatedly ploughed-up to no purpose.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Majority Purpose Shoulders

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

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

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