Anton Chekhov

“In the days when I didn't know people were reading and judging me, I wrote serenely, as if eating bliny; now I…

— Anton Chekhov

“Oh, how people love to disappear from your life. Especially when you already got attached to them.”

— Anton Chekhov

“Es por ello por lo que algunos amigos le acusaron de no conocer «a fondo» a sus personajes, a lo que él…

— Anton Chekhov

“The education of women, for instance, would naturally be regarded as likely to be harmful, but the government opens schools and universities…

— Anton Chekhov

There are in life conjunctions of circumstances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires is least of all appropriate.

— Anton Chekhov

In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!

— Anton Chekhov

“Hundreds of versts of desolate, monotonous, sun-parched steppe cannot bring on the depression induced by one man who sits and talks, and…

— Anton Chekhov

To regard one's immortality as an exchange of matter is as strange as predicting the future of a violin case once the…

— Anton Chekhov

“And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a…

— 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…

— Anton Chekhov

The past,' he thought, 'is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.' And it…

— Anton Chekhov

In two or three hundred years life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astounding. Man needs such a life and if it…

— Anton Chekhov

To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people's consciousness, the people's conscience, freedom andso forth while servants…

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

An artist must pass judgment only on what he understands; his range is limited as that of any other specialist... Anyone who…

— Anton Chekhov

It doesn't matter that your painting is small. Kopecks are also small, but when a lot are put together they make a…

— Anton Chekhov

“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

When you're thirsty and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean that's faith; when you start to drink and finish…

— Anton Chekhov

I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual progress, not a monk. I should like to be…

— Anton Chekhov

I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to…

— Anton Chekhov

Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able…

— Anton Chekhov

Love is a great thing. It is not by chance that in all times and practically among all cultured peoples love in…

— Anton Chekhov

Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most…

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

“if every one has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say that it all comes from terror at…

— Anton Chekhov

“Shabelsky: I'd go into the flames of hell, into the jaws of the crocodile, just so as not to stay here. I…

— Anton Chekhov

“Ivanov: And this whole romance of ours is commonplace and trite: he lost heart, and he lost his way. She came along,…

— Anton Chekhov

He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by…

— Anton Chekhov

Let the things that happen on the stage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life.…

— Anton Chekhov

Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a…

— Anton Chekhov

An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred…

— Anton Chekhov

I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly,…

— Anton Chekhov

We old bachelors smell like dogs, do we? So be it. But I must take issue with your claim that doctors who…

— Anton Chekhov

Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that "each case be individualized." If this advice is followed, one becomes persuaded that those means…

— Anton Chekhov

Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many…

— Anton Chekhov

When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves…

— Anton Chekhov

Whoever sincerely believes that elevated and distant goals are as little use to man as a cow, that "all of our problems"…

— Anton Chekhov

“I often think, what if one were to begin life over again, knowing what one is about! If one life, which has…

— Anton Chekhov

“Ivanov: Gentlemen, you've again set up a drinking shop in my study... I have asked each and every one of you a…

— Anton Chekhov