Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)
Commonly known as Bertolt Brecht, was an influential German Marxist dramatist, stage director, and poet of the 20th century.
In den finsteren Zeiten
Wird da auch gesungen werden?
Da wird auch gesungen werden.
Von den finsteren Zeiten.
Show interest in her goodness — for no one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.
Mr. Wurlitzer, I am now in a position to receive your organ.
To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
Those who are weak don't fight.
Those who are stronger might fight
for an hour.
Those who are stronger still might fight
for many years.
The strongest fight
their whole life.
They are the indispensable ones.
Science has only one commandment: contribution.
What if they gave a war and no one came? Then the war will come to you.
Here today we huddle tight
As the darkest heathens might
The snow falls chilly on our skin
The snow is forcing its way in.
Hush, snow, come in with us to dwell:
We were thrown out by Heaven as well.
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.
War is like love, it always finds a way.
First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics.
It is not enough to demand insight and informative images of reality from the theater. Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality. 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.
People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.
Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Will der Schauspieler nicht Papagei oder Affe sein, muß er sich das Wissen der Zeit über das menschliche Zusammenleben aneignen, indem er die Kämpfe der Klassen mitkämpft. Dies mag manchem wie eine Erniedrigung vorkommen, da er die Kunst, ist die Bezahlung geregelt, in die höchsten Sphären versetzt; aber die höchsten Entscheidungen für das Menschengeschlecht werden auf der Erde ausgekämpft, nicht in den Lüften; im »Äußern«, nicht in den Köpfen. Über den kämpfenden Klassen kann niemand stehen, da niemand über den Menschen stehen kann. Die Gesellschaft hat kein gemeinsames Sprachrohr, solange sie in kämpfende Klassen gespalten ist. So heißt unparteiisch seinfür die Kunst nur: zur herrschenden Partei gehören.
You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.
Their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.
Food first, then morality.
The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it.
Some party hack decreed that the people
had lost the government's confidence
and could only regain it with redoubled effort.
If that is the case, would it not be be simpler,
If the government simply dissolved the people
And elected another?