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Life Quotes by Anton Chekhov

126 Life quotes by Anton Chekhov

All Life quotes Anton Chekhov’s page

Anton Chekhov suggests that if his life can help you, you may claim it. He says a good human life requires work and effort. He also notes that wearing black can be a sign of mourning for one's own life. He imagines a future where Earth becomes unimaginably beautiful.

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“Existence is tedious, anyway.”

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Life has gone by as if I never lived

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If you ever have need of my life, come and take it.

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I'm in mourning for my life.

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

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Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.

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Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!

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Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.

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

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..when one has no real life, one lives by mirages. It's still better than nothing.

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“If you could only see your face, your gestures! Oh, how tedious your life must be.”

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Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.

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I think that it would be less difficult to live eternally than to be deprived of sleep throughout life.

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

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Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

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Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never…

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Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he…

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“My life has been a failure. I am clever and brave and strong. If I had lived a normal life I might…

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At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant…

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

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If our life has a meaning, an aim, it has nothing to do with our personal happiness, but something wiser and greater.

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“MASHA: Isn’t there some meaning? TOOZENBACH: Meaning? … Look out there, it’s snowing. What’s the meaning of that?”

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Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a…

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A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is…

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“A doctrine which advocates indifference to wealth and to the comforts of life, and a contempt for suffering and death [the Stoics']…

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But at the same time, in reality, what a difference there is between the world today, and what it used to be!…

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Idea for a short story. The shore of a lake, a young girl who's spent her whole life beside it, a girl…

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If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that…

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“Repeated – and in fact bitter – experience had long taught him that every affair, which at first adds spice and variety…

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He who doesn't know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life…

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To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective…

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“Just look at this life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, impossible poverty all…

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“It is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in your books I have drunk fragrant wine, I have…

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“The leaves did not stir on the trees, cicadas twanged, and the monotonous muffled sound of the sea that rose from below…

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All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives…

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“For fifteen years I have been intently studying earthly life. It is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but…

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“And I thought how many satisfied, happy people really do exist in this world! And what a powerful force they are! Just…

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He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative…

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“If only you would go to the university," he said. "Only enlightened and holy people are interesting, it's only they who are…

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

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More by Anton Chekhov

“Using vile means to attain worthy ends makes the ends themselves vile. Let them ride on the backs of doctors and medical assistants, but…

If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.

There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments ,…

“But here was all the timorousness and angularity of inexperienced youth, a feeling of awkwardness, and an impression of bewilderment, as if someone had…

“At the water's edge, barrels of pitch blazed like huge bonfires. Their reflection, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in long,…

Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.

While you're playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely…

“Lebedev: France has a clear and defined policy... The French know what they want. They just want to wipe out the Krauts, finish, but…

“My holy of holies are the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom - freedom from force and falsity,…

“What we have, we do not treasure,” and what’s more we do not even love it.”

No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are…

“It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer.”

“His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching…

“Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially Moscow people -- always slow to move and…

“Why do you always wear black?” "I am mourning for my life.”