Anton Chekhov Quotes
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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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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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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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A woman can only become a man’s friend in three stages: first, she’s an agreeable acquaintance, then a mistress, and only after that a friend.
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By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.
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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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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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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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There are no lower or higher or median moralities. There is only one morality, and it is precisely the one that was given to us during the time of Jesus Christ and that stops me, you and Barantsevich from stealing, offending others, lying etc.
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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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A fiancé is neither this nor that: he’s left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
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It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich.
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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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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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If only one tooth aches, rejoice that not all of them ache.... If your wife betrays you, be glad that she betrayed only you and not the nation.
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To Moscow, to Moscow, to Moscow!
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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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That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.
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When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.
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Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
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When a person doesn’t understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn’t search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn’t understand.
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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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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.