Anton Chekhov Quotes

279 Sourced Quotes

I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.

Anton Chekhov
Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? Before God or, perhaps, before the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not before people. Among people, one must be conscious of one's dignity.

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

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

Anton Chekhov
When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.

Anton Chekhov
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.

Anton Chekhov
Pharisaism, obtuseness and tyranny reign not only in the homes of merchants and in jails; I see it in science, in literature, and among youth. I consider any emblem or label a prejudice.... My holy of holies is the human body, health, intellect, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute of freedoms, the freedom from force and falsity in whatever forms they might appear.

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

Anton Chekhov
When we retreat to the country, we are hiding not from people, but from our pride, which, in the city and among people, operates unfairly and immoderately.

Anton Chekhov
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.

Anton Chekhov
You are right to demand that an artist engage his work consciously, but you confuse two different things: solving the problem and correctly posing the question.

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

Anton Chekhov
How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything.

Anton Chekhov
To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.

Anton Chekhov
You ask What is life? That is the same as asking What is a carrot? A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more.

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

Anton Chekhov
You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist.

Anton Chekhov
Man will only become better when you make him see what he is like.

Anton Chekhov
One can only call that youth healthful which refuses to be reconciled to old ways and which, foolishly or shrewdly, combats the old. This is nature's charge and all progress hinges upon it.

Anton Chekhov
When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean—that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses—that is science.

Anton Chekhov
That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.

Anton Chekhov
They say: "In the long run truth will triumph;" but it is untrue.

Anton Chekhov
I couldn't stand a happiness that went on morning noon and night…I promise to be a splendid husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, does not rise every night in my sky.
On being urged to marry

Anton Chekhov
Life isn't finished for us yet! We're going to live!…Maybe, if we wait a little longer, we shall find out why we live, why we suffer.

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

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

Anton Chekhov
When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.

Anton Chekhov
In general, Russia suffers from a frightening poverty in the sphere of facts and a frightening wealth of all types of arguments.

Anton Chekhov
Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority.

Anton Chekhov
People who don't even notice whether it's summer or winter are lucky! If I lived in Moscow I don't think I'd care what the weather was like.

Anton Chekhov