Zitate von Ivo Andrič

„Wer Revolution sagt, hat mehr ausgesprochen, als er denkt und sagen wollte, oder viel weniger, als er vorhersehen kann. Das hängt davon ab, auf welcher Seite der Barrikade er steht.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„Schweigen ist Stärke und Reden Schwäche. Das sieht man auch daran, dass Alte und Kinder gern erzählen.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„Gesellschaftliche Veränderungen? Die Menschheit muß von Zeit zu Zeit die Schulter wechseln, auf der sie die Last trägt, die Leben heißt.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„Alle Menschen sind nicht so schlecht, wie ein schlechter Mensch denkt.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„Von allem, was der Mensch baut und aufbaut, gibt es nichts Besseres und Wertvolleres als Brücken.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„Für einen Mann, der von einer großen, wahren und selbstlosen Liebe erfüllt ist, gibt es Horizonte und Möglichkeiten und Wege, die so vielen klugen, ehrgeizigen und selbstsüchtigen Männern verschlossen und unbekannt sind, auch wenn sie nur auf einer Seite stehen.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„Alles im Leben ist eine Brücke – ein Wort, ein Lächeln, das wir dem anderen schenken.“

—  Ivo Andrič

„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.“

—  Ivo Andrič, buch The Bridge on the Drina

Quelle: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 2

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

—  Ivo Andrič

„One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them.“

—  Ivo Andrič

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

—  Ivo Andrič

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

—  Ivo Andrič

„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 Andrič

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

—  Ivo Andrič, buch The Bridge on the Drina

Quelle: The Bridge on the Drina

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

—  Ivo Andrič

„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, buch The Bridge on the Drina

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

„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.“

—  Ivo Andrič, buch The Bridge on the Drina

Quelle: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 17

„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.“

—  Ivo Andrič

The Bridges, as quoted in The Old Bridge of Mostar and Increasing Respect for Cultural Property in Armed Conflict (2012) by Jadranka Petrovic, p. 65

„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?“

—  Ivo Andrič, buch The Bridge on the Drina

Quelle: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 23