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.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates that fear is a powerful force affecting both the oppressed and those in power.
Bertolt Brecht highlights the paradox of power, suggesting that the anxiety and fear experienced by those who hold authority can be as intense as that felt by their subordinates. The imagery of piglets fearing for their lives vividly underscores how fear permeates all levels of society, influencing decisions and actions regardless of one's position.
In practice
In a speech about leadership, one might use this quote to illustrate how leadership can be stifled by fear.
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.
To those who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.
Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been.
The passionate are like men standing on their heads, they see all things the wrong way.
The best actors just stay in the moment,and whatever happens in the scene is a genuine surprise. You really do not know what's going to happen next. But living that out in life is very dangerous because it throws you into a place where you don't know if you're going to survive.
If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!
Remembrance is a form of meeting.
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