Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956), full name Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. He was a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt. He fled during the Nazi rule, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.

Wisdom & Quotes

• What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?

- The Threepenny Opera

• Eats first, morals after.

- The Threepenny Opera

• Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.

- The Threepenny Opera

• Unhappy the land that needs heroes.

- Galileo

• Who has good luck is good. Who has bad luck is bad.

- The Exception and the Rule

• It isn't important to come out on top. What matters is to be the one who comes out alive.

- In the Jungle of Cities

• War is like love, it always finds a way.

- Mother Courage

Stephen Vincent Benet