Bertolt Brecht Quotes

Being anti-war in Hollywood was an act of bravery on the order of the keynote speaker at a PLO dinner making jokes about Ariel Sharon.

Wars aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.

Unfortunately, we have warring in the world, so the youngest minds, the brilliant minds, are sent off to war. I think that, you know, you have brilliant people with great possibilities and that's why I really am not really for war. I really am not.

We went to America a few times and [Brian] Epstein always tried to waffle on at us about saying nothing about Vietnam. So there came a time when George [Harrison] and I said 'Listen, when they ask next time, we're going to say we don't like that war and we think they should get right out.' That's what we did.

Pacifism in the face of war is not only irresponsible - it is immoral. Refusing to meet force with force in the name of peace will beget not peace, but further death and destruction, the very violence the pacifists seek to avoid.

The spectator, the contemplator, the opposer of war have their hours with the enemy no less than uniformed combatants

I want that there should be a belief, a faith in the possibility of removing mountains to the side of right. If we believe that war is wrong, as everyone must, then we ought to believe that by proper efforts on our part, it may be done away with.

... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.

It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are effective that I uphold them, and it is because force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions. It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity.

In free society art is not a weapon...Artists are not engineers of the soul.

My hope is that the memory of death and disgrace will be so intense that the people of the United States will be able to listen to a message that the rest of the world, sobered by wars without end, can also understand: that war itself is the enemy of the human race.

It is barely conceivable that there are people who like war.

How infuriating it is to be continually born to war that continues one's whole lifetime, even as one protests it - what futility. It is perhaps a more public epic in this regard, and carries a ritual vocalization.

If the workers of this world, men and women, decide not to manufacture and transport ammunition, it would end war for all time. We must do that. Dedicate our lives to drying up the source of war; ammunition factories.

My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war-and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.

There is more value in placing a flower in a rifle barrel than making war. As Jimi Hendrix used to say, musical notes have more importance than bullets.

Gandhi was such an important figure to the pacifists of the '30s, and he was such an extraordinary embodiment of nonviolence, that I thought it was necessary to have him in there. When he would say something about the war, it was to some extent news - and he was sure to have a response that was different from that of other world leaders.

When a man vowed to nonviolence as the law governing human beings dares to refer to war, he can only do it so as to strain every nerve to avoid it.

Weapons are the tools of violence;all decent men detest them.Weapons are the tools of fear;a decent man will avoid themexcept in the direst necessityand, if compelled, will use themonly with the utmost restraint.Peace is his highest value.If the peace has been shattered,how can he be content?His enemies are not demons,but human beings like himself.He doesn't wish them personal harm.Nor does he rejoice in victory.How could he rejoice in victoryand delight in the slaughter of men?He enters a battle gravely,with sorrow and with great compassion,as if he were attending a funeral

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.

Non-violence is a very powerful weapon. Most people don't understand the power of non-violence and tend to be amazed by the whole idea. Those who have been involved in bringing about change and see the difference between violence and non-violence are firmly committed to a lifetime of non-violence, not because it is easy or because it is cowardly, but because it is an effective and very powerful way.

My temperament and habit had always kept me rather in the middle of the road; in politics as well as in social reform I had been for "the best possible." But now I was pushed far toward the left on the subject of the war and I became gradually convinced that in order to make the position of the pacifist clear it was perhaps necessary that at least a small number of us should be forced into an unequivocal position.

His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.

I think we're coming to a place where we're saying all war is wrong. We might even learn something about the sensationalism we get caught up in with people like Donald Trump.

I have received a commission to make a poster against war. That is a task that makes me happy. Some may say a thousand times that this is not pure art.... but as long as I can work, I want to be effective with my art.