Anton Chekhov Quotes
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If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.
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I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.
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In one-act pieces there should be only rubbish-that is their strength.
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There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.
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Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
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People love talking of their diseases, although they are the most uninteresting things in their lives.
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There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday.
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They say: 'In the long run truth will triumph;' but it is untrue.
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Between 'there is a God' and 'there is no God' lies a whole vast tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. A Russian knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or very little. (Diary, 1897)
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Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
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If you can’t distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn’t undertake philanthropic work.
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There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.
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A grimy fly can soil the entire wall and a small, dirty little act can ruin the entire proceedings.
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When a person hasn’t in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog’s bark in every sound.
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I try to catch every sentence, every word you and I say, and quickly lock all these sentences and words away in my literary storehouse because they might come in handy.
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The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can’t return even if it wants to.
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Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.
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I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book.... One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.
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It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.
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Hypocrisy is a revolting, psychopathic state.
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To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
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Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority.
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Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs.
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When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.