Anton Chekhov Quotes
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The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.
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The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
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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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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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There is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the non-existent, of the non-human.
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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.
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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.
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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 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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An expansive life, one not constrained by four walls, requires as well an expansive pocket.
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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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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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A nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog.
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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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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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When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.
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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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If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It’s better to live somehow than not at all.
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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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Everyone has the same God; only people differ.
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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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Ah, but ignorance is better. At least then there's hope.
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I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.
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We old bachelors smell like dogs, do we? So be it. But I must take issue with your claim that doctors who treat female illnesses are womanizers and cynics at heart. Gynecologists deal with savage prose the likes of which you have never dreamed of.