Anton Chekhov Quotes

279 Sourced Quotes

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

Anton Chekhov
If only one tooth aches, rejoice that not all of them ache.... If your wife betrays you, be glad that she betrayed only you and not the nation.

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
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
Tell mother that however dogs and samovars might behave themselves, winter comes after summer, old age after youth, and misfortune follows happiness (or the other way around). A person can not be healthy and cheerful throughout life. Losses lie waiting and man can not safeguard against death, even if he be Alexander of Macedonia. One must be prepared for anything and consider everything to be inevitably essential, as sad as that may be.

Anton Chekhov
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

Anton Chekhov
If you can't distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn't undertake philanthropic work.

Anton Chekhov
Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?

Anton Chekhov
The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.

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
Ah, but ignorance is better. At least then there's hope.

Anton Chekhov
My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life.

Anton Chekhov
We all have too many wheels, screws and valves to judge each other on first impressions or one or two pointers. I don't understand you, you don't understand me and we don't understand ourselves.

Anton Chekhov
There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. But now we must live... we must work, just work!

Anton Chekhov
We old bachelors smell like dogs, do we? So be it. But I must take issue with your claim that doctors who treat female illnesses are womanizers and cynics at heart. Gynecologists deal with savage prose the likes of which you have never dreamed of.

Anton Chekhov
Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and only in the summer. In the city in winter they lose half of their appeal.

Anton Chekhov
Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that each case be individualized. If this advice is followed, one becomes persuaded that those means recommended in textbooks as the best, means perfectly appropriate for the template case, turn out to be completely unsuitable in individual cases.

Anton Chekhov
A naive man is nothing better than a fool. But you women contrive to be naive in such a way that in you it seems sweet, and gentle, and proper, and not as silly as it really is.

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

Anton Chekhov
Despicable means used to achieve laudable goals render the goals themselves despicable.

Anton Chekhov
The bourgeoisie loves so-called positive types and novels with happy endings since they lull one into thinking that it is fine to simultaneously acquire capital and maintain one's innocence, to be a beast and still be happy.

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
People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.

Anton Chekhov
Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.

Anton Chekhov