Ivo Andric Quotes

• 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

  Dark, Thinking, Space

  94 Copy quote

• What doesn't hurt - is not life; what doesn't pass - is not happiness.

  Ivo Andric

  Hurt

  64 Copy quote

• 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

  Eye, Men, Bridges

  85 Copy quote

• 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

  Ocean, Men, Knowing

  64 Copy quote

• 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

  Fear, Not Afraid, Wells

  67 Copy quote

• If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear.

  Ivo Andric

  Fear, People, Brain

  59 Copy quote

• ~beautiful soul weeps deep~

  Ivo Andric

  Soul

  57 Copy quote

• What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.

  Ivo Andric

  Surrender, Ends

  54 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Together, Saws

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  Dark, Men, Years

  53 Copy quote

• Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.

  Ivo Andric

  Beautiful, Song, Men

  41 Copy quote

• What does your sorrow do while you sleep? -It’s awake and waiting. And when it loses patience, it wakes me up.

  Ivo Andric

  Sleep, Waiting, Sorrow

  54 Copy quote

• I gave in to life. I was not defeated but outplayed.

  Ivo Andric

  Defeated

  38 Copy quote

• I do not fear invisible worlds.

  Ivo Andric

  World, Invisible, Do Not Fear

  36 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Law, Doe

  54 Copy quote

• 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

  Compassion, People, Forgive Me

  54 Copy quote

• Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices.

  Ivo Andric

  Land, Discovery, Injustice

  31 Copy quote

• There is no rule without revolts and conspiracies, even as there is no property without work and worry.

  Ivo Andric

  Worry, Conspiracy, Revolt

  36 Copy quote

• Sadness is also a kind of defence.

  Ivo Andric

  Sad, Sadness, Kind

  30 Copy quote

• When I am not desperate, I am worthless.

  Ivo Andric

  Desperate, Worthless

  18 Copy quote

• Bosnia is a country of hatred and fear.

  Ivo Andric

  Country, Hatred, Bosnia

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Philosophy, Bridges, Towns

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Blood, World, Paper

  22 Copy quote

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