Skip to content

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.)

— Bertolt Brecht Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1976)

Another quote →

Topics

Change

More quotes by Bertolt Brecht

Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.

Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

Spring is noticed, if at all
By people sitting in railway trains.

Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

The Mother (1930)

Show interest in her goodness — for no one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

The Good Person of Sezuan (1943)

All Bertolt Brecht quotes →

You may also like

Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes chaos.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

To say that the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident.

Robert F. Kennedy

He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

Samuel Johnson The Idler (1758)

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bertolt Brecht (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.