Anton Chekhov Quotes
-
It is a poor thing for the writer to take on that which he doesn’t understand.
-
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.
-
Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher’s stone.
-
Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie.
-
You ask 'What is life?' That is the same as asking 'What is a carrot?' A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more.
-
Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.
-
He who constantly swims in the ocean loves dry land.
-
I would love to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche on a train or boat and to talk with him all night. Incidentally, I don’t consider his philosophy long-lived. It is not so much persuasive as full of bravura.
-
Moscow is a city that has much suffering ahead of it.
-
When we retreat to the country, we are hiding not from people, but from our pride, which, in the city and among people, operates unfairly and immoderately.
-
One must speak about serious things seriously.
-
Good breeding doesn't mean that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice when someone else does.
-
Tsars and slaves, the intelligent and the obtuse, publicans and pharisees all have an identical legal and moral right to honor the memory of the deceased as they see fit, without regard for anyone else’s opinion and without the fear of hindering one another.
-
Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.
-
There are in life such confluences of circumstances that render the reproach that we are not Voltaires most inopportune.
-
The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist.
-
Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? Before God or, perhaps, before the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not before people. Among people, one must be conscious of one’s dignity.
-
The cherry orchard is now mine!... I bought the estate on which my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even permitted in the kitchen.
-
There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.
-
When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.
-
Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and only in the summer. In the city in winter they lose half of their appeal.
-
Solomon made a great mistake when he asked for wisdom.
-
Everything is good in due measure and strong sensations know not measure.
-
Despicable means used to achieve laudable goals render the goals themselves despicable.