...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
Interpretation
Simplicity requires effort and skill to achieve, contrary to the belief that it is easy.
Bertolt Brecht's quote emphasizes the notion that creating something simple often demands a deep understanding and careful thought. In a world that frequently values complexity, he points out that true simplicity is a challenging, yet profound goal that requires significant effort and creativity to attain.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture on design principles to emphasize the value of simplicity in creating effective solutions.
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.
But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?
Too much freedom can lead to the soul's decay.
Want and wealth equally harden the human heart, as frost and fire are both alien to the human flesh. Famine and gluttony alike drive away nature from the heart of man.
Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity.
We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us.
Pessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind.
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