Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov Quotes
279 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
It's very hard, feeling that you're no more than a piece of unwanted furniture in this world.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
A litterateur is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer.... He is just like an ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter, because of his fastidiousness or from a wish to give pleasure to his readers, were to describe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroad contractors.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
An enormously vast field lies between God exists and there is no God. The truly wise man traverses it with great difficulty. A Russian knows one or the other of these two extremes, but is not interested in the middle ground. He usually knows nothing, or very little.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it's tobacco, then let it be tobacco.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
Women writers should write a lot if they want to write. Take the English women, for example. What amazing workers.
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...
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...
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...
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...
Everything is quiet, peaceful and against it all is only the silent protest of statistics...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Faith is a capacity of the spirit. It is like talent: you have to be born with it
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...
You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.
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...
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...
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...
A doctor is called in, but a nurse sent for.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual progress, not a monk. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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!
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
You confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for an artist.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
When there is someone in a family who has long been ill, and hopelessly ill, there come terrible moments when all those close to him timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts wish for his death...
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
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.
Anton Chekhov
Source
Report...
I've never been in love. I've dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.
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