Anton Chekhov Quotes

279 Sourced Quotes

It's very hard, feeling that you're no more than a piece of unwanted furniture in this world.

Anton Chekhov

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

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

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

Women writers should write a lot if they want to write. Take the English women, for example. What amazing workers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A doctor is called in, but a nurse sent for.

Anton Chekhov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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