Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov Quotes
279 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because--I don't know why.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Faith is a capacity of the spirit. It is like talent: you have to be born with it
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Everything is quiet, peaceful and against it all is only the silent protest of statistics...
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
If doctors prescribe too many remedies for an illness it probably means that the illness can't be cured at all.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
Love, friendship, and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Quote of the day
No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.
John Morley
Anton Chekhov
Creative Commons
Born:
January 29, 1860
Died:
July 15, 1904
(aged 44)
Bio:
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history.
Known for:
The Seagull (1896)
The Cherry Orchard (1904)
Three Sisters
Uncle Vanya (1897)
Ivanov (1887)
Most used words:
people
life
man
live
love
person
understand
time
happiness
write
work
happy
artist
god
women
Anton Chekhov on Wikipedia
Anton Chekhov works on Gutenberg Project
Anton Chekhov works on Wikisource
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Anton Chekhov Quotes
Anton Chekhov Short Quotes
Quotes about Anton Chekhov
Russian Playwright Quotes
Playwright Quotes
19th-century Playwright Quotes
Related Authors
Leo Tolstoy
Russian Author
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Russian Author
Nikolai Gogol
Ukrainian Playwright
Alexander Pushkin
Russian Poet
Maxim Gorky
Russian Playwright
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes