What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
Interpretation
This quote questions the essence of existence and value beyond the surface.
Bertolt Brecht's quote, 'What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?' invites contemplation on the nature of absence and presence. It suggests that when something that defines or gives context to a situation is removed, one must consider what remains and how our perception of value or existence is intertwined with what is missing, thereby prompting a deeper reflection on dependency and identity.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of existence.
The shrill voices of those who give orders Are full of fear like the squeakings of Piglets awaiting the butcher's knife, as their fat arses Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs.... Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but The rulers too.
We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.
We attacked a foreign people and treated them like rebels. As you know, it's all right to treat barbarians barbarically. It's the desire to be barbaric that makes governments call their enemies barbarians.
War is like love, it always finds a way.
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
Recently my fingers have developed a prejudice against comparatives. They all follow this pattern: a squirrel is smaller than a tree; a bird is more musical than a tree. Each of us is the strongest one in his or her own skin. Characteristics should take off their hats to one another, instead of spitting in each other's faces.
Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind.
I am an Addictive Personality, they say, a natural slave to passion - and many Doctors have warned me against it. I am a High-risk Patient.
Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.
I care much more about saving the lives of mothers and babies than I do about a fancy museum somewhere.
There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.
There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
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