“Oh, how people love to disappear from your life. Especially when you already got attached to them.” — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“MASHA : Happiness does not depend on riches; poor men are often happy.” — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“NINA. Your play is very hard to act; there are no living characters in it. TREPLIEFF. Living characters! Life must be represented… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won't intoxicate with one glass someone… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“Science and art,... they seek the truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, [and] the soul, and when they are… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It's better to… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“The fear of death is an animal passion which must be overcome. Only those who believe in a future life and tremble… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Do you know," Ivan Bunin recalls Anton Chekhov saying to him in 1899, near the end of his too-short life, "for how… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
I think human beings must have faith or must look for faith, otherwise our life is empty, empty. To live and not… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
After us they'll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they'll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“To leave town, and the struggle and the swim of life, and go and hide yourself in a farmhouse is not life… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
In two or three hundred years life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astounding. Man needs such a life and if it… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“if every one has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say that it all comes from terror at… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“How many happy, satisfied people there are, after all, I said to myself. What an overwhelming force! Just consider this life--the insolence… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“In my opinion, it is not the writer’s job to solve such problems as the existence of God, pessimism, etc. The job… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially Moscow people -- always slow to… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Nature's law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“If life has any meaning or purpose, you won't find it in happiness, but in something more rational, in something greater.” — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“Everything is beautiful in this world…except that we think and do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“The sunlight and the sounds told him that somewhere in this world there is a pure, refined, poetical life. But where was… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“But, as I was saying, life holds nothing for me; my race is run. I am old, I am tired, I am… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
In all my life I never met anyone so frivolous as you two, so crazy and unbusinesslike. I tell you in plain… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“BORKIN: [Sighing] The life of a man is like a flower, blooming so gaily in a field. Then, along comes a goat,… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
We go to great pains to alter life for the happiness of our descendants and our descendants will say as usual: things… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Everything on earth is beautiful, everything -- except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
There are in life conjunctions of circumstances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires is least of all appropriate. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“Lebedev: ...There'll be a scandal, the tongues of the whole district will buzz with gossip, but it's better to go through a… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share Image
“Using vile means to attain worthy ends makes the ends themselves vile. Let them ride on the backs of doctors and medical assistants, but… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments ,… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“But here was all the timorousness and angularity of inexperienced youth, a feeling of awkwardness, and an impression of bewilderment, as if someone had… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“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,… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves. — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
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… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“Lebedev: France has a clear and defined policy... The French know what they want. They just want to wipe out the Krauts, finish, but… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“My holy of holies are the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom - freedom from force and falsity,… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“What we have, we do not treasure,” and what’s more we do not even love it.” — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share
“Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially Moscow people -- always slow to move and… — Anton Chekhov Copy Share