Peter Weiss quotes
Peter Weiss was a German-Swedish playwright, novelist, and artist, renowned for his experimental and politically charged works. His most famous play, "Marat/Sade," had a profound impact on modern theatre. He addressed themes of revolution, repression, and human rights in his diverse body of work. Here are 23 of his quotes:
We're all so clogged with dead ideas
passed from generation to generation
that even the best of us don't know the way out
We invented the Revolution
but we don't know how to run it
Look everyone wants to keep something from the past
a souvenir of the old regime
This man decides to keep a painting
This one keeps his mistress
He [pointing] keeps his garden
He [pointing] keeps his estate
He keeps his country house
He keeps his factories
This man couldn't part with his shipyards
This one kept his army
and that one keeps his king.
Peter Weiss
Against Nature's silence I use action
In the vast indifference I invent a meaning
I don't watch unmoved I intervene
and say that this and this are wrong
and I work to alter them and improve them
The important thing
is to pull yourself up by your own hair
to turn yourself inside out
and see the whole world with fresh eyes.
Peter Weiss
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 saidBut she never said a word
never turned her headDon'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 todayBut she never said a word
never turned her head.
Peter Weiss
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.
Peter Weiss
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.
Peter Weiss
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.
Peter Weiss
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.
Peter Weiss
Our play's chief aim has been to take to bits
Great propositions and their opposites,
See how they work, and let them fight it out,
To point some light on our eternal doubt.
Marat and I both advocated force
But in debate each took a different course.
Both wanted changes, but his views and mine
On using power never could combine.
On the one side, he who thinks our lives
Can be improved by axes and knives,
Or he who, submerged in the imagination,
Seeking a personal annihilation.
Peter Weiss
Peter Weiss
Occupation: German Playwright
Born: November 8, 1916
Died: May 10, 1982
Quotes count: 23
Wikipedia: Peter Weiss
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