Peter Weiss Quotes

Chiedi al Bunkerjakob
che controllava tutto
Come fai a resistere
Lui disse
Sia lode a quanto
rende duri
Io sto bene
mangio le razioni
di quelli là dentro
La loro morte non mi tocca
Tutto questo mi tocca
quanto può toccarmi
la pietra di questo muro

I've twisted and turned them every way, And can see no ending to our play.

Inseparable from economic advantage was the superiority of knowledge. Ownership involved greed, and the advantaged tried as long as possible to block the road to education for the have-nots. The privileges of the ruling class could not be eliminated until we gained insight into the conditions and acquired fundamental knowledge. We kept getting repulsed over and over because our ability to think, to deduce, and conclude was insufficiently developed. This state of affairs began changing with the realization that the upper classes essentially opposed our thirst for knowledge. Ever since, our most important goal was to conquer an education, a skill. In every field of research, by using any means, cunning and strength of mind. From the very outset, our studying was rebellion.

Don't be taken in when they pat you paternally on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason for fighting. Because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretense of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons rapidly developed by servile scientists will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you into pieces.

Don't soil your pretty little shoes
The gutter's deep and red
Climb up climb up and ride along with me
the tumbrel driver said But she never said a word
never turned her head Don't soil your pretty little pants
I only go one way
Climb up climb up and ride along with me
There's no gold coach today But she never said a word
never turned her head

Once and for all
the idea of glorious victories
won by the glorious army
must be wiped out
Neither side is glorious
On either side they're just frightened men messing their pants
and they all want the same thing
Not to lie under the earth
but to walk upon it
without crutches

(Roux, act 1, scene 19)

I could buy myself paper, a pen, a pencil and a brush and could create pictures whenever and wherever I wanted. … That evening, in the spring of 1947, on the embankment of the Seine in Paris, at the age of thirty, I saw that it was possible to live and work in the world, and that I could participate in the exchange of ideas that was taking place all around, bound to no country.

And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice
and they turned away their faces and said
Our kingdom is not as the kingdom of this world
Our life on earth is but a pilgrimage
The soul lives on humility and patience
at the same time screwing from the poor their last centime
They settled down among their treasures
and ate and drank with princes
and to the starving they said
Suffer
Suffer as he suffered on the cross
for it is the will of God

And now Marat
now I see where
this revolution is heading
To the withering of the individual man
and a slow merging into uniformity
to the death of choice
to self denial
to deadly weakness
in a state
which has no contract with individuals
but which is impregnable

Only in his poetry did he have the courage to love.

Fight on land and sea
All men want to be free
If they don't
never mind
we'll abolish all mankind

Don't be deceived
when our Revolution has been finally stamped out
and they tell you
things are better now
Even if there's no poverty to be seen
because the poverty's been hidden
even if you ever got more wages
and could afford to buy
more of these new and useless goods
which these new industries foist on you
and even if it seems to you
that you never had so much
that is only the slogan of those
who still have much more than you

We've got rights the right to starve
We've got jobs waiting for work
We're all brothers lousy and dirty
We're all free and equal to die like dogs

SADE
Olhai-os Marat
olhai os antigos donos de todos os bens do mundo
como transformaram em triunfo a sua queda
Agora que lhes roubaram todos os prazeres
O cadafalso guarda-os de tédio infindo
Felizes sobem as escadas
como se subissem ao trono
Não é o cúmulo da corrupção

Every death even the cruellest death
drowns in the total indifference of Nature
Nature herself would watch unmoved
if we destroyed the entire human race
I hate Nature
this passionless spectator this unbreakable iceberg-face
that can bear everything
this goads us to greater and greater acts