Anton Chekhov Quotes
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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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Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.
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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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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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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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There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.
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Love is a great thing. It is not by chance that in all times and practically among all cultured peoples love in the general sense and the love of a man for his wife are both called love. If love is often cruel or destructive, the reason lies not in love itself, but in the inequality between people.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
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It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich.
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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.
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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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The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issues not from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.
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I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it’s tobacco, then let it be tobacco.
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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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That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.
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It’s even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.