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Anton Chekhov Quotes - Page 9

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

Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.

Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.

Writing, Play, Judging

Anton Chekhov's letter to A.S. Suvorin, May 4, 1889.

For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.

Life, School, Soul

By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.

People, Firsts, Appearance

"A Trivial Incident". Short story by Anton Chekhov, 1886.

It's even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.

Recovery, Holiday, People

"The Story of an Unknown Man". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1893.

Love is a scandal of the personal sort.

Love, Love Is, Scandal

"The Piano Player". Short story by Anton Chekhov, 1885.

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

Inspirational, Jobs, Honest

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ronald Hingley (1998). “Five Plays”, p.266, Oxford University Press, USA

I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don't like. No other criterion exists for me.

Two, Criteria, Categories

Anton Chekhov's letter to I.L. Leontev, March 22, 1890.

Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let's have a philosophical conversation.

Philosophical, Tea, Conversation

Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.

Drama, Wife, Mistress

"Memories of Chekhov: Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries". Book by Peter Sekirin, September 30, 2011.

This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!

Art, Stupid, Reading

Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.

Time, Men, Remember You

Anton Chekhov (2007). “Chekhov Plays”, p.126, Wordsworth Editions

He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people.

Running, Two, People

Anton Chekhov (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)”, p.2943, Delphi Classics

Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.

Children, Expression, Silence

"Enemies". Short story by Anton Chekhov, 1887.

In two or three hundred years life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astounding. Man needs such a life and if it hasn't yetappeared, he should begin to anticipate it, wait for it, dream about it, prepare for it. To achieve this, he has to see and know more than did his grandfather and father.

Change, Beautiful, Dream

"The Three Sisters". Play by Anton Chekhov, 1901.

No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.

Fake People, Psychology, Doe

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.

Inspirational, Men, Wild Life

'Uncle Vanya' (1897) act 1

I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and can't remember a single useful point in any of them, or the slightest good advice. The only reviewer who ever made an impression on me was Skabichevsky, who prophesied that I would die drunk in the bottom of a ditch.

Reading, Years, Editors

I often wonder: suppose we could begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light ... I have a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry. ... No, no!

Daughter, Flower, Thinking

Anton Chekhov (2012). “The Three Sisters”, p.11, Courier Corporation

It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.

Math, Punishment, Coarse

"A Journey to Sakhalin". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1895.

That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.

Can Not

"A Letter to a Learned Neighbor". Short story by Anton Chekhov, March 9, 1880.

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.

Punishment, Champion, Suffering

If you look at anything long enough, say just that wall in front of you - it will come out of that wall.

Wall, Writing, Long

There are no small number of people in this world who, solitary by nature, always try to go back into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail.

Numbers, People, Trying

"The Man in a Case". Short story by Anton Chekhov, 1898.

Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.

Mean, Goal, Achieve

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

I agree that one can't dispense with the reins and the whip altogether, for knaves find their way even into literature, but no thinking will discover a better police for literature than the critics and the author's own conscience.

Best Effort, Police, Criticism

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

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