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.
If the President does it, it can't be illegal.
The last few hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne: "but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering-
There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.
God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver.
A man with a machine and inadequate culture is a pestilence.
I have never felt that the one thing that I am 'known for' is what I am.
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