Top 15 Peter Weiss Quotes

Every death even the cruelest 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

We're all free and equal to die like dogs

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)

Long ago I left heroics to the heroes

What's the point of a revolution
without general
copulation copulation copulation

Before deciding what is wrong and what is right
first we must find out what we are

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.

With the plundered people transferring their energies into relaxed and receptive thoughts, degradation and lust for power produced art.

And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice and they turned their faces away 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 the poor from 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 anyone believes what they hear over and over again, so the poor instead of bread made do with a picture of the bleeding, scourged, and nailed-up Christ and prayed to that image of their helplessness. And the priests said, 'Raise your hands to heaven and bend your knees and bear your suffering without complaint. Pray for those that torture you, for prayer and blessing are the only stairways which you can climb to paradise.'

And so they chained down the poor in their ignorance so that they wouldn't stand up and fight their bosses who ruled in the name of the lie of divine right.

What kind of town is this
What sort of streets are these
Who invented this
who profits by it
I saw peddlers
at every corner
they’re selling little guillotines
with tiny sharp blades
and dolls filled with red liquid
which spurts fro the neck
when the sentence is carried out.
What kind of children are these
who can play
with this toys so efficiently
and who is judging

SADE
Desprezo essas manifestações da masa
que giram em círculo vicioso
(...)
Desprezo todas essas boas intenções
que se perdem nas vielas
desprezo todos os sacrifícios
feitos por alguma coisa
Só acredito em mim mesmo.

These cells of the inner self are darker than the deepest stone dungeon, and as long as they are locked, all your revolution remains but a prison mutiny, to be put down by corrupted fellow prisoners.

OS QUATRO CANTORES
Pobre Marat em tua casa cercada
estás adiantado um século de nós
Enquanto tine a lâmpada lá fora
e tuas palavras se decompõe
escorre-se em sangue
toda a verdade que aprendeste,

Like Bretonne, Sue stood on the side of the poorest, despised art that allowed itself to be exploited by the ruling classes, and believed that poems ought to be scratched into walls and bridge vaults, able to be read by vagabonds, surrendered to the elements.

Marat o que aconteceu com nossa Revolução
Marat não queremos mais esperar até amanhã
Marat continuamos sempre gente pobre
e queremos hoje as mudanças prometidas.