Anton Chekhov Quotes

He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.

If I had listened to the critics I'd have died drunk in the gutter

Only entropy comes easy.

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

Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.

I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days.

Desription should be very brief and have an incidental nature.

I have the feeling that I've seen everything, but failed to notice the elephants.

Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.

Writers are as jealous as pigeons.

If there's any illness for which people offer many remedies, you may be sure that particular illness is incurable, I think.

Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.

When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.

There are no small number of people in this world who, solitary by nature, always try to go back into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail.

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

Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.

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

In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.

I'm the seagull. No, that's not it. I'm an actress. That's it.

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

Three o'clock in the morning. The soft April night is looking at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can't sleep, I am so happy.

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

There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.

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

I promise to be a splendid husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, won't in my sky every day...

One had better not rush, otherwise dung comes out rather than creative work.

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

..when one has no real life, one lives by mirages. It's still better than nothing.

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

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

Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don't have a passport.

People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.

Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.

It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.

The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected.

I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.

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.

The more simply we look at ticklish questions, the more placid will be our lives and relationships.

To regard one's immortality as an exchange of matter is as strange as predicting the future of a violin case once the expensive violin it held has broken and lost its worth.

If you want to work on your art, work on your life.

The more refined one is, the more unhappy.

There is nothing more vulgar than a petty bourgeois life with its halfpence, its victuals, its futile talk, and its useless conventional virtue.

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.

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

Even in Siberia there is happiness.

When you live on cash, you understand the limits of the world around which you navigate each day. Credit leads into a desert with invisible boundaries.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious

You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.

One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.

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