Anton Chekhov Quotes

Eyes - the head's chief of police. They watch and make mental notes.

My business is to be talented, that is, to be capable of selecting the important moments from the trivial ones. . . . It's about time for writers - particularly those who are genuine artists - to recognize that in this world you cannot figure out everything. Just have a writer who the crowds trust be courageous enough and declare that he does not understand everything, and that alone will represent a major contribution to the way people think, a long leap forward.

The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.

Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things are forgiven.

It is the writer's business not to accuse and not to prosecute, but to champion the guilty, once they are condemned and suffer punishment.

It's easier to ask for money from the poor than from the wealthy.

They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.

You don't understand, you fool' says Yegor, looking dreamily up at the sky. 'You've never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years... You just think I'm a mad person who has thrown his life away... Once the free spirit has taken hold of a man, there's no way of getting it out of him.

Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!

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.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

When a person hasn't in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog's bark in every sound.

A fiancé is neither this nor that: he's left one shore, but not yet reached the other.

What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.

Solomon made a big mistake when he asked for wisdom.

There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.

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?

Life has gone by as if I never lived

Write only of what is important and eternal.

My love is like a stone tied round my neck; it's dragging me down to the bottom; but I love my stone. I can't live without it.

Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.

Love is a scandal of the personal sort.

Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning.

Time will pass, and we shall go away for ever, and we shall be forgotten, our faces will be forgotten, our voices, and how many there were of us; but our sufferings will pass into joy for those who will live after us, happiness and peace will be established upon earth, and they will remember kindly and bless those who have lived before.

Faith is a capacity of the spirit. It is like talent: you have to be born with it

I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.

I am writing a play which I probably will not finish until the end of November. I am writing it with considerable pleasure, though I sin frightfully against the conventions of the stage. It is a comedy with three female parts, six male, four acts, a landscape (view of the lake), lots of talk on literature, little action and tons of love.

It's very hard, feeling that you're no more than a piece of unwanted furniture in this world.

The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must have sounded when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are all no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection.

Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and only in the summer. In the city in winter they lose half of their appeal.

It's immoral to steal, but you can take things.

Common hypocrites pass themselves off as doves; political and literary hypocrites pose as eagles. But don't be fooled by their eagle-like appearance. These are not eagles, but rats or dogs.

You will not become a saint through other people's sins.

If an intelligent, educated, and healthy man begins to complain of his lot and go down-hill, there is nothing for him to do but to go on down until he reaches the bottom--there is no hope for him. Where could my salvation come from? How can I save myself? I cannot drink, because it makes my head ache. I never could write bad poetry. I cannot pray for strength and see anything lofty in the languor of my soul. Laziness is laziness and weakness weakness. I can find no other names for them. I am lost, I am lost; there is no doubt of that.

All saints have past and all sinners have a future.

If there's a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must fire the gun by act three, scene two. If you fire a gun in act three, scene two, you must see the gun on the wall in act one, scene one.

Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling.

You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more to know.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. But now we must live ... we must work, just work!

And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.

My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life.

The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issuesnot from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

I am now and have always been a stranger to the realm of practical matters.

The critics suppose that it is easy to write a play. They aren't aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.