What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
Interpretation
The quote expresses concern about societal issues being ignored in favor of trivial topics.
Bertolt Brecht's quote highlights a profound societal critique, suggesting that discussing nature, represented by trees, is seen as inappropriate during times filled with significant human suffering and injustice. It implies that focusing on such peaceful subjects can detract from the urgent need to address the horrors that are occurring, thus reflecting a moral dilemma about the responsibilities of individuals in acknowledging and confronting social issues.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might reference this quote to emphasize the urgency of addressing both ecological and social issues.
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.
If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.
Life comes from the earth and life returns to the earth.
Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time...When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.
Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don't move; today is today, always is today.
No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.
Human history is a Gaian dream.
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