Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.
BERTOLT BRECHTPleasures First look from morning’s window The rediscovered book Fascinated faces Snow, the change of the seasons
More Bertolt Brecht Quotes
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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.
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Grub first, then ethics.
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For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
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General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.
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Oh! Moon of Alabama We now must say good-bye We’ve lost our good old mama And must have whiskey Oh, you know why!
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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.
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You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!
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For art to be ‘unpolitical’ means only to ally itself with the ‘ruling’ group.
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Who fights may lose, but who does not fight has lost already.
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The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.
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There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.
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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.
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To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
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Only bad generals need heroes.
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The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread.
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We often do not know ourselves the grounds On which we act, though plain to others.
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The war which is coming Is not the first one. There were Other wars before it. When the last one came to an end There were conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered the common people Starved. Among the conquerors The common people starved too.
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People who understand everything get no stories.
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Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.
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Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
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The headlong stream is termed violent But the river bed hemming it in is Termed violent by no one.
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He who fights, can lose. He who doesn’t fight, has already lost.
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It’s never too late for those whose time has come.
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The storm that bends the birch trees Is held to be violent But how about the storm That bends the backs of the roadworkers?
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What’s breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?
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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.
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