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.
Interpretation
Bridges symbolize connection and unity among people, surpassing the value of physical structures.
Ivo Andric emphasizes the profound significance of bridges as symbols of human connection and shared experiences. Unlike houses or shrines, which can represent isolation or exclusivity, bridges are inherently inclusive and serve a common purpose, reflecting the collective needs of humanity. They stand as enduring structures that promote harmony and understanding, highlighting the importance of cooperation and community in human life.
In practice
In a speech about community development, one might say, 'Like Ivo Andric stated, bridges are more valuable than houses, symbolizing our connections with one another.'
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.
Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.
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.
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.
Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices.
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.
Loneliness is the way by which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself.
Honestly, what can really be said about 'the Jewish people' as a whole? Is it not a lamentable stereotype to make large generalizations about all Jews, and to presume they all share the same political commitments?
Richness in the world is a result of other people's poverty. We should begin to shorten the abyss between haves and have-nots.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
There would be more sense in insisting on man's limitations because he cannot be a mother than on a woman's because she can be.
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