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Anton Chekhov Quotes - Page 2

All Quotes Age Art Boredom Capital Punishment Character Children Conscience Country Criticism Death Desire Dying Earth Failing Faith Feelings Freedom Funny Giving Grief Happiness Happy Hatred Heart Home Human Nature Hypocrisy Illness Inspiration Inspirational Judging Justice Language Life Literature Loneliness Love Lying Marriage Money Moon Motivational Nature Pain Past Philosophy Police Progress Psychology Purpose Reality Respect Running Science Silence Sin Sleep Soul Students Success Suffering Summer Talent Theatre Time Today Understanding Virtue Wall Wife Winter Wisdom Work Writing Youth

If you want to work on your art, work on your life.

If you want to work on your art, work on your life.

Art, Growth, Want

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.

Love Is, Stones, Necks

Anton Chekhov (2012). “The Cherry Orchard”, p.33, Courier Corporation

The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

Inspirational, Life, Illusion

Anton Chekhov (2015). “The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…”, p.3128, e-artnow

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.

Love, Feelings, Self Improvement

"Seeing Chekhov". Book by Michael Finke, 2005.

If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it.

Gun, Use, Firsts

In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.

Nature, Butterfly, Lovely

It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.

Academia, Philosopher, Easy

All saints have past and all sinners have a future.

Wisdom, Past, Saint

Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.

Lying, Speak, Authority

It's easier to ask for money from the poor than from the wealthy.

Money, Poor, Easier

We are accustomed to live in hopes of good weather, a good harvest, a nice love-affair, hopes of becoming rich or getting the office of chief of police, but I've never noticed anyone hoping to get wiser. We say to ourselves: it'll be better under a new tsar, and in two hundred years it'll still be better, and nobody tries to make this good time come tomorrow. On the whole, life gets more and more complex every day and moves on its own sweet will, and people get more and more stupid, and get isolated from life in ever-increasing numbers.

Sweet, Stupid, Nice

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.

Men, Land, Wild Life

'Uncle Vanya' (1897) act 1

Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.

Real, Interesting, Secrecy

"A Chekhov lexicon" by William Boyd, www.theguardian.com. July 3, 2004.

If I had listened to the critics I'd have died drunk in the gutter

Inspirational, Motivational, Success

Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.

Fool, Praise, Accepting

Anton Chekhov (2015). “The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…”, p.3741, e-artnow

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

Grace, Action, Persons

Letter to Maxim Gorky, January 3, 1899.

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

Art, Roles, Answers

When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.

Mourning, Black, Said

A good person will feel guilty even before a dog.

Dog, Guilt, Good Person

There is nothing more vulgar than a petty bourgeois life with its halfpence, its victuals, its futile talk, and its useless conventional virtue.

Vapid, Mediocrity, Useless

"Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends: With Biographical Sketch". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1920.

The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.

Fire, Hatred, Literature

"Uncle Vanya". Play by Anton Chekhov, 1897.

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.

Canaries, Pious

There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.

Discipline, People, Plenty

Letter to V.A. Posse, February 15, 1900.

You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.

Love, Family, Happiness

Life has gone by as if I never lived

Gone, Ifs

Anton Chekhov (2009). “The Cherry Orchard: in a new English version”, p.71, Faber & Faber

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