Ivo Andric Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 46 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ivo Andric.
Famous Quotes By Ivo Andric
But one thing could not happen; it could not be that great and wise men of exalted soul who would raise lasting buildings for the love of God, so that the world should be more beautiful and man live in it better and more easily, should everywhere and for all time vanish from this earth. Should they too vanish, it would mean that the love of God was extinguished and had disappeared from the world. That could not be. — Ivo Andric
Searching for what I need, and I don't even know precisely what that is, I was going from a man to a man, and I saw that all of them together have less than me who has nothing, and that I left to each of them a bit of that what I don't have and I've been searching for. — Ivo Andric
He who is not delicate flower of your soul to the winds of temptation, whatever it whole and saved and passed on to the end, it's as if it never had. — Ivo Andric
Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilization; some believe they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames and smolders and is extinguished, according to the place and the angle of view. — Ivo Andric
They entered there into the unconscious philosophy of the town; that life was an incomprehensible marvel, since it was incessantly wasted and spent, yet none the less it lasted and endured 'like the bridge on the Drina'. — Ivo Andric
Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn't, there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow, hard, bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives. — Ivo Andric
Lost in his thoughts he looked out from his shop at the shining loveliness of that first day of March. Opposite him, a little to the side, stood the eternal bridge, everlastingly the same; through its white arches could be seen the green, sparkling, tumultuous waters of the Drina, so that they seemed like some strange diadem in two colours which sparkled in the sun. — Ivo Andric
It was an intimate bond between the men of that generation ... for nothing brings men close together than a common misfortune happily overcome. — Ivo Andric
The verses which he published in various reviews from time to time, and the neatly copied poems which he sent to his friends, superiors, and important personages, were neither much better nor much worse than thousands of other verse products of the day. — Ivo Andric
One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them. — Ivo Andric
What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be. — Ivo Andric
But misfortunes do not last forever (this they have in common with joys) but pass away or are at least diminished and become lost in oblivion. Life on the kapia always renews itself despite everything and the bridge does not change with the years or with the centuries or with the most painful turns in human affairs. All these pass over it, even as the unquiet waters pass beneath its smooth and perfect arches. — Ivo Andric
The desire for sudden change and the thought of their realization by force often appears among men like a disease and gains ground mainly in young brains; only these brains do not think as they should, do not amount to anything in the end and the heads that think thus do not remain long on their shoulders. For it is not human desires that dispose and administer the things of this world. Desire is like a wind, it sifts the dust from one place to another, sometimes darkens the whole horizon, but in the end calms down and leaves the old and eternal picture of the world. Lasting deeds are realized on this earth only by God's will, and man is only His humble and blind tool. — Ivo Andric
What does your sorrow do while you sleep? -It's awake and waiting. And when it loses patience, it wakes me up. — Ivo Andric
To be a man, to have been born without knowing it or wanting it, to be thrown into the ocean of existence, to be obliged to swim, to exist; to have an identity; to resist the pressure and shocks from the outside and the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts - one's own and those of others - which so often exceed one's capacities? And what is more, to endure one's own thoughts about all this: in a word, to be human. — Ivo Andric
In the journal of my misery, each sorrow competes for the first place in length and strength. — Ivo Andric
Never can that be told, for those who saw and lived through it have lost the gift of words and those who are dead can tell no tales. Those were things which are not told, but forgotten. Fore where they not forgotten, how could they ever be repeated? — Ivo Andric
I do not fear invisible worlds. — Ivo Andric
To those who boasted of the speed with which they could now finish their business and reckoned how much time money and effort they had saved, he replied ill-humouredly that it was not important how much time a man saved, but what he did with it when he had saved it. If he used it for evil purposes then it had been better he had never had it. He tried to prove that the main thing was not that a man went swiftly but where he went and for what purposes and that, therefore, speed was not always an advantage. 'If you are going to Hell, then it is better to go slowly. — Ivo Andric
I don't plan anything any more. I just live my life. — Ivo Andric
Bosnia is a country of hatred and fear. — Ivo Andric
What doesn't hurt - is not life; what doesn't pass - is not happiness. — Ivo Andric
Of everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. — Ivo Andric
Whenever a government feels the need of promising peace and prosperity to its citizens by means of a proclamation, it is time to be on guard and expect the opposite. — Ivo Andric
Each of them had personal, real or imagined, but deep reasons for dissatisfaction with life. Furthermore they had one great reason in common; both felt themselves to be unhappy and like outcasts in this town and this society of officers, for the most part frivolous and empty-headed. So they clung to one another feverishly like two survivors of a shipwreck. — Ivo Andric
That wild beast which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. — Ivo Andric
It seems to me, that if people only knew how hard it was for me to endure life, they would find it easier to forgive me for all the wrong things I've done and all the good things that I have failed to do. And they would still find a little compassion within them to pity me. — Ivo Andric
No one knows what it means to be born and to live on the brink, between two worlds....to love and hate both, to hesitate and waver all one's life. To have two homelands and yet have none. To be everywhere at home and to remain forever a stranger. In short, to be torn on a rack, but as both victim and torturer at once. — Ivo Andric
They looked at the paper and saw nothing in those curving lines, but they knew and understood everything, for their geography was in their blood and they felt biologically their picture of the world. — Ivo Andric
When I am not desperate, I am worthless. — Ivo Andric
The sky above Belgrade is expansive and high, shifting yet always beautiful; clear with its chill splendour during the winter; turning into a single downcast cloud during summer storms, driven by the crazy winds and bearing rain mixed with the dust of the Pannonian plain; seeming to flower along with the ground during spring; and growing heavy with roils of autumnal stars during fall. Always beautiful and bountiful, it is a reward to this odd township for all that is missing and a comfort for everything that should not be. — Ivo Andric
The streets were empty, the courtyards and gardens as if dead. In the Turkish houses depression and confusion reigned, in the Christian houses caution and distrust. But everywhere and for everyone there was fear. The entering Austrians feared an ambush. The Turks feared the Austrians. The Serbs feared both Austrians and Turks. The Jews feared everything and everyone since, especially in times of war, everyone was stronger than they. — Ivo Andric
Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices. — Ivo Andric
For only thus, living each moment separately and looking neither forward nor back, could such a life be borne and a man keep himself alive in hope of better days. — Ivo Andric
There comes a time when a man finds himself in front of a dark uncrossable abyss, which he himself has spent years digging. He cannot go forward, and has no way back. Words have failed, tears won't help, and who would he call out to? He can't even remember his own name. Then the man sees that on this god's green earth there is but one true suffering: the torment of guilty conscience. — Ivo Andric
They were all there.And all of them,these days,were as if drunk with bitterness,from desire for vengeance and longed to punish and to kill whomsoever they could,since they could not punish or kill those whom they wished. — Ivo Andric
Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves. — Ivo Andric
Every woman has some reason to weep and weeping is sweetest when it is for another's sorrow. — Ivo Andric
And then the death will come. The great parting, but the least painful of all the goodbyes we ever knew. For in death, only one shall grieve. And so far we have always, at every parting, grieved together. — Ivo Andric
There is no rule without revolts and conspiracies, even as there is no property without work and worry. — Ivo Andric
For a man filled with a great, true and unselfish love, even if it be on one side only, there open horizons and possibilities and paths which are closed and unknown to so many clever, ambitious, and selfish men. — Ivo Andric
Hope is an act of desperate defiance against monstrous odds. — Ivo Andric
~beautiful soul weeps deep~ — Ivo Andric