82 quotes
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.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women.
The Good Person of Sezuan (1943)
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
How long
Do works endure? As long
As they are not completed.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
The plum tree in the yard's so small
It's hardly like a tree at all.
Yet there it is, railed round
To keep it safe and sound.The poor thing can't grow any more
Though if it could it would for sure.
There's nothing to be done
It gets too little sun.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.
Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear
And he keeps it out of sight.
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.
Life of Galileo (1939)
All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
And the shark he has his teeth and
There they are for all to see
And Macheath he has his knife but
No one knows where it may be.
The Threepenny Opera (1928)
Events cast long shadows before.
One such event would be a war.
But how are shadows to be seen
When total darkness fills the screen?
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.
Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!
First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics.
The Threepenny Opera (1928)
The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is an escape for him. That's great art — nothing is self-evident. I am made to laugh about those who cry, and cry about those who laugh.
Entertainment or Education? (1936)
High above the lake a bomber flies.
From the rowing boats
Children look up, women, an old man. From a distance
They appear like young starlings, their beaks
Wide open for food.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
Sometimes I have visions of myself driving through hell, selling sulphur and brimstone, or through heaven peddling refreshments to the roaming souls. If me and the children I've got left could find a place where there's no shooting, I wouldn't mind a few years of peace and quiet.
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)
The rain
Never falls upwards.
When the wound
Stops hurting
What hurts is
The scar.
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
To Posterity (1939)
Come fishing with me, said the fisherman to the worm.
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)