Young Alexander conquered India. He alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army? Philip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears? Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who Triumphed with him?
One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.
Don’t accept the habitual as a natural thing. In times of disorder, of organized confusion, of de-humanized humanity, nothing should seem natural. Nothing should seem impossible to change.
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.
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!”
