Ivo Andrić cytaty

„Kto się boi nie wiedząc właściwie czego, podwójnie się boi.”

„Nie ma władzy bez buntów i sprzysiężeń, podobnie jak nie ma skarbów bez trosk i strat.”

„Skoro jakiś rząd odczuwa potrzebę zapewniania swym obywatelom za pośrednictwem plakatów pokoju i dobrobytu, wypada mieć się na baczności i spodziewać się czegoś wręcz przeciwnego.”

„Świat zwykł po niebiosa wychwalać ludzi przyzwoitych i hojnych li tylko dlatego, że na ich zgubie żeruje.”

„Żywot to dziw niepojęty, bo wciąż niszczeje i szczerbi się, a jednak trwa niezłomnie jak most na Drinie.”

„Skąpstwo jest jedną z tych namiętności, które czasem pociągają za sobą brud fizyczny.”

„Czas nuży i męczy tylko tych, co żyją zajęci jedynie błahymi troskami.”

„Fundamenty świata oraz podstawy życia i stosunków międzyludzkich ustalone zostały po wieczne czasy. Nie oznacza to, że są one niezmienne, ale mierzone wiekiem ludzkiego życia wydają się wieczne: Stosunek ich trwania do wieku ludzkiego jest taki sam, jak stosunek niespokojnej, ruchliwej powierzchni wartkiej rzeki do jej stałego, trwałego dna, które ulega zmianom wolno i niepostrzeżenie.”

„Piękno to złudzenie i pułapka na drodze człowieka, jedno z nie dających się objaśnić przekleństw jego istnienia.”

„Mało ludzi zasługuje na to, aby ich słuchano uważnie, ale wszyscy zasługują na to, aby ich obserwowano ze współczuciem i wyrozumiałością.”

„Dzieci często bywają tak okrutne w słowach, jak dorośli jedynie w myślach pozwalają sobie na to.”

„Języka nie trzeba wiecznie trzymać za zębami i że słowa niekoniecznie zawsze muszą pozostawać za myślą, jak to starsi utrzymywali i o czym byli przekonani.”

„Nawet największe pustynie mają swoją wiosnę, choćby najkrótszą i niedostrzegalną.”

„Nawet dla zmarłych litość jest ciężka i obraźliwa.”

„Coraz bardziej rzuca się w oczy, że zarobki i lżejsze życie, jakie one przynoszą, mają odwrotną stronę medalu, że zarówno pieniądz, jak i jego posiadacz są tylko uczestnikami jakiejś ogromnej, kapryśnej gry, której wszystkich prawideł nikt nie zna ani nie może przewidzieć wyników. Mimo woli wszyscy w tej grze bierzemy udział, jeden w mniejszej, inny w większej mierze, ale wszyscy ze stałym ryzykiem.”

„Na każdej książce stanowiącej prawdziwe dzieło sztuki, można by napisać: „wyjęte z życia mojego i waszego.””

„Co nie boli, to nie życie, co nie przemija, to nie szczęście.”

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

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

“Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“From 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.”

“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. 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. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.”

“There are no buildings that have been built by chance, remote from the human society where they have grown and its needs, hopes and understandings, even as there are no arbitrary lines and motiveless forms in the work of the masons. The life and existence of every great, beautiful and useful building, as well as its relation to the place where it has been built, often bears within itself complex and mysterious drama and history.”

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

“The bridge remained as if under sentence of death, but none the less still whole and untouched, between the two warring sides.”

“You listen and live prudently, in fact you do not live at all, but work and save and are burdened with cares; and so your whole life passes. Then, all of a sudden, the whole thing turns upside down; times come when the world mocks at reason, when the Church shuts its doors and is silent, when authority becomes mere brute force, when they who have made their money honestly and with the sweat of their brows lose both their time and their money, and the violent win the game. No one recognizes your efforts and there is no one to help or advise you how to keep what you have earned and saved. Can this be? Surely this cannot be?”

“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, tumultous waters of the Drina, so that they seemed like some strange diadem in two colours which sparkled in the sun.”

“For the greater part of its course the river Drina flows through narrow gorges between steep mountains or through deep ravines with precipitous banks. In a few places only the river banks spread out to form valleys with level or rolling stretches of fertile land suitable for cultivation and settlement on both sides.”