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I was called up in the war and sent to a hospital. I dressed wounds, applied iodine, gave enemas, did blood transfusions. If the doctor ordered: “Brecht, amputate a leg!”, I would reply, “Certainly, Your Excellency!”, and cut off the leg. If I was told, “Perform a trepanning!”

Bertolt Brecht

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
For art to be ‘unpolitical’ means only to ally itself with the ‘ruling’ group.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Allies Art Mean
Their peace and their war Are like wind and storm. War grows from their peace.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Peace Storm War Wind
Poverty makes you wise but it’s a curse.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Curse Poverty Wise
Things take indeed a wondrous turn When learned men do stoop to learn.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Men Scholarship Turns
Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Black Proposition Running Sensible Show Support
What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
BERTOLT BRECHT

Kind Silence Tree
Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Be Kind Kindness Wanted
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Dark Inspirational Singing
Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Dammed Easy Important
Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty Often have a share in their misfortunes.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Fortune Good Mighty Share
When the leaders speak of peace The common folk know That war is coming When the leaders curse war
BERTOLT BRECHT

Common Folk Lying War
To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Fire Nothing World
It’s never too late for those whose time has come.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Come Late never Too
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
Writers can’t write as fast as governments make wars; because to write demands thinking.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Thinking War Writing

I was called up in the war and sent to a hospital. I dressed wounds, applied iodine, gave enemas, did blood transfusions. If the doctor ordered: “Brecht, amputate a leg!”, I would reply, “Certainly, Your Excellency!”, and cut off the leg. If I was told, “Perform a trepanning!”

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I was called up in the war and sent to a hospital. I dressed wounds, applied iodine, gave enemas, did blood transfusions. If the doctor ordered: “Brecht, amputate a leg!”, I would reply, “Certainly, Your Excellency!”, and cut off the leg. If I was told, “Perform a trepanning!”

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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