23+ Ivo Andric Quotes (Literary, Historical And Nobel)

Ivo Andric was a Nobel Prize-winning Serbian and Yugoslav novelist, short story writer, and poet. He is best known for his novels The Bridge on the Drina and The Days of the Consuls. He is considered one of the most significant Serbian and Yugoslav writers of the 20th century.

Top 10 Ivo Andric Quotes

1. One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them.
2. If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear.
3. 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.
4. Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.
5. There is no rule without revolts and conspiracies, even as there is no property without work and worry.
6. I do not fear invisible worlds.
7. Sadness is also a kind of defence.
8. When I am not desperate, I am worthless.
9. Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices.
10. 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 Short Quotes

• What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.
• Bosnia is a country of hatred and fear.
• ~beautiful soul weeps deep~
• I gave in to life. I was not defeated but outplayed.
• What doesn't hurt - is not life; what doesn't pass - is not happiness.

Ivo Andric Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

Life Lessons by Ivo Andric

Ivo Andric's work teaches us to appreciate the beauty of our shared humanity, to understand the complexities of history, and to recognize the power of storytelling to bridge cultural divides. His works emphasize the importance of understanding the perspectives of others, and the need to respect and learn from the past. Through his stories, Andric encourages us to explore the depths of our own humanity, and to strive for peace and understanding.