Anton Chekhov Quotes

People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.

There are people whom even children's literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.

Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they'll find a means to be happy.

Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?

It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others' expense.

Once a man gets a fixed idea, there's nothing to be done.

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

Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.

To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.

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

Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.

The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.

A man who doesn't drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man.

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.

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

Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.

The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.

When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.

By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.

It is as acceptable now to love the wives of others as it is to smoke their cigars and read their books.

In my head there is a whole army of people asking to be let out and waiting for the word of command.

One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.

What's the use of talking? You can see for yourself that this is a barbarous country; the people have no morals; and the boredom!

A man wants nothing so badly as a gooseberry farm.

Posterity will say as usual: "In the past things were better, the present is worse than the past.

Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?

An artist's flair is sometimes worth a scientist's brains.

When an actor has money he doesn't send letters, he sends telegrams.

All the great sages are as despotic as generals, and as ignorant and as indelicate as generals, because they feel secure of impunity.

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!

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.

What a delight it is to respect people!

Oh, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read - my own or other people's works - it all seems to me not short enough.

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

You confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for an artist.

In Russia there is no philosophy, but philosophize everything, even the small fry.

I do not know why one should not hunt two hares even in the literal sense....

The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.

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

The air of one's native country is the most healthy air.

There isn't a Monday that would not cede its place to Tuesday.

Love is a scandal of the personal sort.

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.

What must human beings be, to destroy what they can never create?

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

There ought to be a man with a hammer behind the door of every happy man.

Happiness does not await us all. One needn't be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money. That is why we must hang on to one another.

To live simply to die is by no means amusing, but to live with the knowledge that you will die before your time, that's really is idiotic

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

If you can't distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn't undertake philanthropic work.