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I’m in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.

Bertolt Brecht

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

Cutting Men Transfusion War
There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Men Struggle Years
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.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Even Greater Love Lover Peace Provided War
For the task assigned them Men aren’t smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Clever Lying Smart
You have to attack once the truth is too weak to defend itself.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Defend Truth Weak
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn’t seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Children Hate Ignorance
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
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.
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Audience Discovery Experience Joy Pleasure Schooled
To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Finesse Mean Process
It’s never too late for those whose time has come.
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Come Late never Too
Each of us is the strongest one in his or her own skin. Characteristics should take off their hats to one another, instead of spitting in each other’s faces.
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Characteristics Each Face Spitting
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you!
BERTOLT BRECHT

Politics Suppose War
Go make yourself a plan And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, For neither will come right.
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Light Planning Shining
Fearful is the seductive power of goodness.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Fearful Goodness Seductive
The mobilization order is already written out. Every day, to earn my daily bread I go to the market where lies are bought Hopefully I take up my place among the sellers.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Eran Hopefully Mobilization Out Place Seller Written
Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must also change. Nothing comes from nothing; the new comes from the old, but that is why it is new.
BERTOLT BRECHT

Change Nothing Reality Representation

I’m in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.

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I’m in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.

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