The Bridge on the Drina
Ivo Andrić
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.”
“Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilization; some believe they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames and smolders and is extinguished, according to the place and the angle of view.”
“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.”
“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'.”
“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.”
“For only thus, living each moment separately and looking neither forward nor back, could such a life be borne and a man keep himself alive in hope of better days.”
“But misfortunes do not last forever (this they have in common with joys) but pass away or are at least diminished and become lost in oblivion. Life on the kapia always renews itself despite everything and the bridge does not change with the years or with the centuries or with the most painful turns in human affairs. All these pass over it, even as the unquiet waters pass beneath its smooth and perfect arches.”
“Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves. So, in the kapia, between the skies, the river and the hills, generation after generation learnt not to mourn overmuch what the troubled waters had borne away. 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'.”
“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.”
“...every woman has some reason to weep and weeping is sweetest when it is for another's sorrow.”
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Book Keywords:
civilization, love, generations, peace, misfortune, passage-of-time, weep, one-sided-love, government, woman, possibilities, bridges, sorrow
