Anton Chekhov Quotes
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When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean-that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses-that is science.
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Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.
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If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him.
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An expansive life, one not constrained by four walls, requires as well an expansive pocket.
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At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.
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How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their marvelous works.
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Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
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Everyone has the same God; only people differ.
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If you really think about it, everything is wonderful in this world, everything except for our thoughts and deeds when we forget about the loftier goals of existence, about our human dignity.
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In my opinion it is harmful to place important things in the hands of philanthropy, which in Russia is marked by a chance character. Nor should important matters depend on leftovers, which are never there. I would prefer that the government treasury take care of it.
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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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Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a bad time of it.
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A nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog.
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Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape.
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Children are holy and pure. Even those of bandits and crocodiles belong among the angels.... They must not be turned into a plaything of one’s mood, first to be tenderly kissed, then rabidly stomped at.
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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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Ah, but ignorance is better. At least then there's hope.
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He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear and cool autumn days, flocks of migrating thrushes drift over a village. Until his death he will be drawn to freedom.
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Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?
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Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.
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Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.
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There is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the non-existent, of the non-human.
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When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.
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Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don’t know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hard and tortuous to write a bad one.