Anton Chekhov quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Anton Chekhov on Wise Famous Quotes.

And here I, her own father, here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking it! And I have already drunk it!

Jews have sprung up and are amassing money,

Lice consume grass, rust consumes iron, and lying the soul!

I've noticed that people who get married cease to be curious.

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

When a woman is plain, people say, 'What beautiful eyes you have, beautiful hair.

You look boldly ahead; isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes.

If you fear loneliness, then don't get married.

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

We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.

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

my whole life is nothing else than a daily effort to deceive myself and other people, and to avoid noticing it;

To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.

In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit.

The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living.

and only waking from this nightmare at rare intervals in the tavern;

Oh, how people love to disappear from your life. Especially when you already got attached to them.

And the man who seeks salvation in change of place like a migrating bird would find nothing anywhere, for all the world is alike to him.

The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.

A good person will feel guilty even before a dog.

The sea has neither meaning nor pity.

[W]hen people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved with strangers

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.
(The Mill)

To Moscow, to Moscow, to Moscow!

Nobody asks her not to understand! It's a lesson for these foreigners!

There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.

Every science has a beginning but no end.

There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent.

Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it's unimaginable.

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.
(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.

Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.

If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.

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

civilization has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty.

It's easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook.

If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.

Love, respect, and friendship do unite a people as well as a common hatred does.

Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.

People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.

I believe that nothing passes without a trace and that each of our smallest steps has significance for the present and the future.

It always seems to the brothers and the father that their brother or son didn't marry the right person.

If you ever have need of my life, come and take it.

Every coming year is as bad as the previous one, the only difference being that in most cases it is even worse.

To believe in God is not hard. Inquisitors, Byron and Arakcheev believed in Him. No, believe in man!

His cheeks, his eyes, his chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome and repellent!

How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life!

If life has any meaning or purpose, you won't find it in happiness, but in something more rational, in something greater.

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

If you want to work on your acting, work on yourself.

MASHA : Happiness does not depend on riches; poor men are often happy.

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

If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.

the standard of culture is falling,

Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs.

The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.

If you want women to love you, then don't be cross in front of them and don't go all pompous ... -Anna Petrovna in Ivanov

I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don't like. No other criterion exists for me.

Perhaps a man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five known to us are destroyed and the remaining ninety-five are left alive.

The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.

there--hang analysis! Why, is a man likely to interpret his sensations when he is flying head foremost from

How unbearable at times are people who are happy, people for whom everything works out.

When a person expends the least possible amount of energy on a certain act, that is grace.

Neither I nor anyone else knows what a standard is. We all recognize a dishonorable act, but have no idea what honor is.

And a pretty wife involves a great deal of anxiety.

We should show life neither as it is, nor as it should be, but as we see it in our dreams.

Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system. Raskolnikov

No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand ... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.

Your insincerity is natural and in the order of things. If people agreed together and suddenly became sincere,

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

He did nothing and knew how to do nothing. He

I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.

You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.

Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.

And really is there anything in the world more captivating than a beautiful young mother with a healthy baby in her arms? 'What

If you wish women to love you be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter & women fell in love with him.

All saints have past and all sinners have a future.

A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.

A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.

In your books I have flung myself into the bottomless pit, performed miracles, slain, burned towns, preached new religions, conquered whole kingdoms

She is far above the crowd! He, he, he ... and she doesn't reckon us as human beings.

Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.

You are confusing two notions, "the solution of a problem" and "the correct posing of the question". Only the second is essential for the artist.

Writers are as jealous as pigeons.

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there

Moscow is a city that has much suffering ahead of it.

Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.

Shabelsky: Doctors are the same as lawyers, the sole difference being that lawyers only rob you, but doctors rob you and kill you too ...

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

Why do you always wear black?"
"I am mourning for my life.

Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.

Write only of what is important and eternal.

A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.

To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!

And therefore I should be very desirous to be united in the bonds of Hymen

Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don't matter. God gave woman hysterics as a relief.

Ivan Ivanyches,' sighed the

To advise is not to compel.