Top 438 Quotes & Sayings by Anton Chekhov - Page 2

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

This life of ours...human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up---no more flower.

Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.

Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.

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

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.

It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense. Only fools and charlatans think they know and understand everything. The stupider they are, the wider they conceive their horizons to be. And if an artist decides to declare that he understands nothing of what he sees - this in itself constitutes a considerable clarity in the realm of thought, and a great step forward.

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.

Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many unsuccessful days and whole unsuccessful seasons: there will be great misunderstandings and deep disappointments… you must be prepared for all this, expect it and nevertheless, stubbornly, fanatically follow your own way.

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.

People's destinies are so different. Some people drag along, unnoticed and boring—they're all alike, and they're all unhappy. Then there are others, like for instance you—you're one in a million. You're happy—

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

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

We are accustomed to live in hopes of good weather, a good harvest, a nice love-affair, hopes of becoming rich or getting the office of chief of police, but I've never noticed anyone hoping to get wiser. We say to ourselves: it'll be better under a new tsar, and in two hundred years it'll still be better, and nobody tries to make this good time come tomorrow. On the whole, life gets more and more complex every day and moves on its own sweet will, and people get more and more stupid, and get isolated from life in ever-increasing numbers.

Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds.

If our life has a meaning, an aim, it has nothing to do with our personal happiness, but something wiser and greater.

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

The snow has not yet left the earth but spring is already asking to enter your heart.

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

When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you’ll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you’ll eat yourself.

The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.

A man and a woman marry because both of them do not know what to do with themselves.

Try to reason about love, and you will lose your reason.

Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.

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.

Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.

When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.

Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?

[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.

There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments , but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.

If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take, however small, has significance for our present and our future existence.

A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.

Even in Siberia there is happiness.

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

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

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

Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.

For God's sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.

A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.

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

All saints have past and all sinners have a future.

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

I think human beings must have faith or must look for faith, otherwise our life is empty, empty. To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why children are born, why there are stars in the sky. You must know why you are alive, or else everything is nonsense, just blowing in the wind.

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

It's not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.

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.

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.

Try to be original in your play and as clever as possible; but don't be afraid to show yourself foolish; we must have freedom of thinking, and only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.

The unhappy are egotistical, base, unjust, cruel, and even less capable of understanding one another than are idiots. Unhappinessdoes not unite people, but separates them.

Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.

An artist observes, selects, guesses, and synthesizes.

An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.

In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because--I don't know why.

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.

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.

In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to portray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she.

If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.

Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. ... It is comprehensible when I write: "The man sat on the grass," because it is clear and does not detain one's attention. On the other hand, it is difficult to figure out and hard on the brain if I write: "The tall, narrow-chested man of medium height and with a red beard sat down on the green grass that had already been trampled down by the pedestrians, sat down silently, looking around timidly and fearfully." The brain can't grasp all that at once, and art must be grasped at once, instantaneously.