Bertolt Brecht's most famous quotes
The top 3 according to 4 votes from people: Food comes first, then morals. · Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear, / And he shows them pearly white. · The womb he crawled from is still fertile.. (Updated Jan 18, 2022.)
Brecht's best-known lines from The Threepenny Opera, Galileo, Arturo Ui and his poems, each with its work. No fakes: «Where injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty» is not documented in Brecht.
Automatically translated (original in Deutsch). See the original
Top 12
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1
Food comes first, then morals.
«What Keeps Mankind Alive?», The Threepenny Opera (1928).
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2
Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear, / And he shows them pearly white.
The Ballad of Mack the Knife, opening The Threepenny Opera (1928), music by Kurt Weill.
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3
The womb he crawled from is still fertile.
Epilogue of «The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui» (1941), on fascism.
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4
What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?
Mack the Knife in The Threepenny Opera (1931 print version), Act III.
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5
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.
Galileo in Life of Galileo, replying to «Unhappy the land that has no heroes!».
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6
He who doesn't know the truth is merely a fool. But he who knows it and calls it a lie is a criminal!
Life of Galileo.
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7
Would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?
Poem «The Solution» after the uprising of 17 June 1953, Buckow Elegies.
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8
The toils of the mountains lie behind us, / before us lie the toils of the plains.
Poem «Perception» (1949).
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9
Whoever says A doesn't have to say B. He can also realise that A was wrong.
The boy in «He Who Says No» (1930).
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10
We stand here disappointed and see, dismayed, / the curtain closed and all the questions open.
Epilogue of «The Good Person of Szechwan».
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11
Go on, make yourself a plan, be a shining light! Then make yourself a second plan: neither will go right.
«Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavour», The Threepenny Opera, Act III.
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12
My favourite reading? You'll laugh: the Bible.
Answer to a survey by the magazine «Die Dame» (1928).
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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Comments (5)
Gut, dass das Falschzitat mit dem Widerstand erklärt wird.
Die Lösung, das Volk auflösen, so bitter und aktuell.
Die Mühen der Ebenen, passt auf jedes Projekt im Büro 😄
Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat — mein Lieblingssatz.
«Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral» ist zeitlos.