“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 Andrič , book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 21

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For a man filled with a great, true and unselfish love, even if it be on one side only, there open horizons and possibi…" by Ivo Andrič?
Ivo Andrič photo
Ivo Andrič 16
novelist, short story writer 1892–1975

Related quotes

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“But even when the choice is made, you must still remember that of the real and the unreal there are many varieties; and discrimination must still be made between the right and the wrong, the important and the unimportant, the useful and the useless, the true and the false, the selfish and the unselfish.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

§ I
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: In all the world there are only two kinds of people — those who know, and those who do not know; and this knowledge is the thing which matters. What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs — these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge — the knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution. When once a man has seen that and really knows it, he cannot help working for it and making himself one with it, because it is so glorious, so beautiful. So, because he knows, he is on God's side, standing for good and resisting evil, working for evolution and not for selfishness.
If he is on God's side he is one of us, and it does not matter in the least whether he calls himself a Hindu or a Buddhist, a Christian or a Muhammadan, whether he is an Indian or an Englishman, a Chinaman or a Russian. Those who are on His side know why they are here and what they should do, and they are trying to do it; all the others do not yet know what they should do, and so they often act foolishly, and try to invent ways for themselves which they think will be pleasant for themselves, not understanding that all are one, and that therefore only what the One wills can ever be really pleasant for any one. They are following the unreal instead of the real. Until they learn to distinguish between these two, they have not ranged themselves on God's side, and so this discrimination is the first step.
But even when the choice is made, you must still remember that of the real and the unreal there are many varieties; and discrimination must still be made between the right and the wrong, the important and the unimportant, the useful and the useless, the true and the false, the selfish and the unselfish.

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“Because He is Love, you, if you would become one with Him, must be filled with perfect unselfishness and love also.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

§ IV
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: Of all the Qualifications, Love is the most important, for if it is strong enough in a man, it forces him to acquire all the rest, and all the rest without it would never be sufficient. Often it is translated as an intense desire for liberation from the round of births and deaths, and for union with God. But to put it in that way sounds selfish, and gives only part of the meaning. It is not so much desire as will, resolve, determination. To produce its result, this resolve must fill your whole nature, so as to leave no room for any other feeling. It is indeed the will to be one with God, not in order that you may escape from weariness and suffering, but in order that because of your deep love for Him you may act with Him and as He does. Because He is Love, you, if you would become one with Him, must be filled with perfect unselfishness and love also.
In daily life this means two things; first, that you shall be careful to do no hurt to any living thing; second, that you shall always be watching for an opportunity to help.
First, to do no hurt. Three sins there are which work more harm than all else in the world — gossip, cruelty, and superstition — because they are sins against love. Against these three the man who would fill his heart with the love of God must watch ceaselessly.

Swami Vivekananda photo

“The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

“That which we look on with unselfish love
And true humility is surely ours,
Even as a lake looks at the stars above
And makes within itself a heaven of stars.”

Mary Gardiner Brainard (1837–1905) American poet

Ownership, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Annie Besant photo

“There is the first condition, the sine quanon. For the selfish no such advance is possible; for the unselfish such advance is certain. And in whatever life the man begins to think more of the common good than of his own individual gain, whether it be in the service of the town, of the community, of the nation, of the wider joinings of nations together, right up to the service of humanity itself, every one of those is a step towards the Path, and is preparing the man to set his feet thereon.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Steven Erikson photo

“Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops whither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters (2006)

“Broaden your horizons. They're the only ones you'll ever have, so make the suckers as wide as possible.”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Source: Anyone But You

Morihei Ueshiba photo

“There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit — love.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

Morihei Ueshiba, as quoted in You Can Save the Earth: 7 Reasons Why and 7 Simple Ways, a Philosophy for the Future (2008) by Hatherleigh, Sean K. Smith, and Andrew Flach, p. 92
Context: Each and every master, regardless of the era or the place, heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth. There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit — love.

Bob Marley photo

“When one door is closed, many more is open.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Coming in from the Cold, from the album Confrontation
Song lyrics

Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo

“Clever men will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness; every authority rouses their ridicule, every superstition amuses them, every convention moves them to contradiction. Only force finds favor in their eyes, and they have no toleration for anything that is not purely natural and spontaneous. And yet ten clever men are not worth one man of talent, nor ten men of talent worth one man of genius.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

16 February 1868
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: Clever men will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness; every authority rouses their ridicule, every superstition amuses them, every convention moves them to contradiction. Only force finds favor in their eyes, and they have no toleration for anything that is not purely natural and spontaneous. And yet ten clever men are not worth one man of talent, nor ten men of talent worth one man of genius. And in the individual, feeling is more than cleverness, reason is worth as much as feeling, and conscience has it over reason. If, then, the clever man is not mockable, he may at least be neither loved, nor considered, nor esteemed. He may make himself feared, it is true, and force others to respect his independence; but this negative advantage, which is the result of a negative superiority, brings no happiness with it. Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

Related topics