Ivo Andrič citáty

„… cítím čas jako živel, tu vlídný a užitečný, tu škodlivý a ničivý, tak jako člověk cítí vzduch, oheň a vodu. Dusím se nedostatkem času a nebo cítím, jak mě pálí a deptá, anebo v něm pluji s pocitem božské lehkosti. A přitom v každém okamžiku vím, že čas je jen bolestná iluze, že je to ve skutečnosti pouze počet souzených nám tepů a že jinak ani neexistuje.“

„Zklamat se v nějaké velké naději není žádná hanba. Už sám fakt, že taková naděje mohla existovat je tak cenný, že není příliš draze zaplacen zklamáním, i kdyby bylo nevím jak těžké.“

„V základě toužíme jen po jednom: po pravdě. Vymanit se z hukotu slov, probít se schématem obrazů a proniknout k pravdě, nahé, prosté, třeba i smrtelné. Po všech nebohých příbězích, se samým mlčením spočinout na tvrdé a temné půdě, nevidět, nedýchat, nežít, ale posledním zábleskem vědomí obsáhnout pravdu, jedinou důstojnost. Zhasněte příběh a fantazii jako čadivou lampu. Svítá.“

„Srdce produkuje myšlenky, jež jsou rozumu nepochopitelné.“

„Z toho, co nebylo a nikdy nebude, vytvoří zruční spisovatelé nejkrásnější romány o tom, co je.“

„Snad polovina odporných škodlivých věcí otravujících život člověka a hyzdících tvář světa byla zosnována v manželské posteli nebo kolem ní.“

„Co nebolí - to není život, co nepomíjí - to není štěstí.“

„Život je nepochopitelný zázrak, protože se sice stále opotřebovává a drolí, a přesto trvá a stojí pevně, jako most na Drině.“

„Otec si stěžuje na líného, zkaženého syna, který se dal na špatnou cestu, rozhazuje jmění, trápí ostatní členy rodiny i otce samého: "Kdybych zplodil kámen, měl bych si na co sednout. Takhle nic."“

„V rozlehlém brambořišti osamělá slunečnice pod zataženým nebem. Stojí obrácená k východu, protože slunce celý den nevyšlo zpod mraků a nyní je za mraky kdesi na západě. Jenže slunečnice zřejmě ztratila orientaci, a tak stojí celá bez sebe už od rána a čeká na slunce…“

„V přísnosti, již někdejší zhýralci projevují vůči mládeži, bývá cosi obzvláště ošklivého. Trestají mládež i za své někdejší přestupky a snad se mstí i za svou nynější nemohoucnost.“

„Viděl jsem, v čem spočívá takzvaná bojovnost některých "bojových" lidí. Vymyslí si svůj "boj", vydupou si ze země důvody, dají mu jméno a bojují bez rizika a bezvýsledně. Bojují - jenom aby nemuseli myslet a pracovat.“

„Kdo dokáže prohrát a oživit samotu, získal celý svět.“

„Běda člověku, jenž nerozumí žertu i společnosti, která se neumí, netroufne si, anebo se nemůže bezelstně smát.“

„Že mlčení je síla a mluvení slabost, to je vidět i z toho, že starci a děti rádi mluví.“

“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.”