Anton Chekhov Quotes
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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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Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?
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An artist must pass judgment only on what he understands; his range is limited as that of any other specialist—that's what I keep repeating and insisting upon. Anyone who says that the artist's field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealings with imagery. An artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes.
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I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.
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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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Everyone has the same God; only people differ.
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Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.
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That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.
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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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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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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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Ah, but ignorance is better. At least then there's hope.
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When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you’ll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you’ll eat yourself.
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A nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog.
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Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die.
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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.