Bertolt Brecht Men Quotations

Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.

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.

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.

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: It needs a driver. General, your bomber is powerful. It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant. But it has one defect: It needs a mechanic. General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.

Unhappiness doesn't grow on the chest like leprosy. Poverty won't fall off the roof like a loose tile, no; poverty and unhappiness are man's doing.

I am a playwright. I show What I have seen. In the man markets I have seen how men are traded. That I show, I, the playwright.

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!" I opened the man's skull and messed about with his brains. I saw how they patched fellows up, so as to cart them back to the Front as quickly as they could.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

I don't know what a man is. Only that every man has his price.

For the villainy of the world is great, and a man has to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen out fom underneath him.

The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.

Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to common sense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face

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.

The fate of man is man.

Things take indeed a wondrous turn When learned men do stoop to learn.

The right to happiness is fundamental; men live so little time and die alone.

For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?

General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.

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.