Anton Chekhov Quotes

279 Sourced Quotes

When one sees one of the romantic creatures before him he imagines he is looking at some holy being, so wonderful that its one breath could dissolve him in a sea of a thousand charms and delights; but if one looks into the soul -- it's nothing but a common crocodile.

Anton Chekhov
And it is the way with us that you may express disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you like, but God preserve you from touching the Liberals! Heaven forbid!

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

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

Anton Chekhov
Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground.

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

Anton Chekhov
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.

Anton Chekhov
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.

Anton Chekhov
The time's come: there's a terrific thunder-cloud advancing upon us, a mighty storm is coming to freshen us up....It's going to blow away all this idleness and indifference, and prejudice against work....I'm going to work, and in twenty-five or thirty years' time every man and woman will be working.

Anton Chekhov
It is the writer's business not to accuse and not to prosecute, but to champion the guilty, once they are condemned and suffer punishment.

Anton Chekhov
In a century or two, or in a millennium, people will live in a new way, a happier way. We won"t be there to see it - but it"s why we live, why we work. It"s why we suffer. We"re creating it. That"s the purpose of our existence. The only happiness we can know is to work toward that goal.

Anton Chekhov
Everything is quiet, peaceful and against it all is only the silent protest of statistics...

Anton Chekhov
VERSHININ: Take Copernicus or Columbus, for instance — didn't their discoveries seem useless or ridiculous at first, and some fool's empty nonsense seem the truth?

Anton Chekhov
If doctors prescribe too many remedies for an illness it probably means that the illness can't be cured at all.

Anton Chekhov
But if you had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone: "My work is literature."

Anton Chekhov
My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.

Anton Chekhov
A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples' character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!

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

Anton Chekhov
When a person hasn't in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog's bark in every sound.

Anton Chekhov
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.

Anton Chekhov
A writer must be as objective as a chemist: he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dung-heaps play a very reasonable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.

Anton Chekhov
By all means I will be married if you wish it. But on these conditions: everything must be as it has been hitherto—that is, she must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see her.... I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.

Anton Chekhov
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.

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

Anton Chekhov
Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.

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

Anton Chekhov
Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.

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

Anton Chekhov
To begin to live in the present, we must first atone for our past and be finished with it, and we can only atone for it by suffering, by extraordinary, unceasing exertion.

Anton Chekhov
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.

Anton Chekhov